Saturday afternoon and I’m home alone. Chores are in hand. Nothing on TV and the book I’m reading, the collected stories of cult American author, HP Lovecraft, is more medicinal than recreational, so it sits untouched by our bed.
On Record Store Day (globally recognised on April 19th) I swung by Mr. V’s on Semaphore Road, and because one of the very best ways to invest half an hour is by listening to a Beatles’ album, I bought this. The music transports me to my childhood. It remains thrilling and urgent and while Paul is my favourite, I can understand why George Martin, their producer, commented that of all the great things he got to do with the Beatles, his absolute preference was mixing the vocals of John. As I type, the album’s on and it’s utterly joyous and innocent and compelling.
I love our backyard. And the time of peak admiration is, of course, in those first minutes after it’s been mowed on an autumnal afternoon. The breeze is coaxing the trees and shrubs towards folksy dance and there’s bursts of birdsong. I’m in debt to Claire who, with her artistic eye, designed and brought our garden to painterly life. Later, I may sit out here with a quiet ale and admire the view.
I purchased Glenelg Footy Club’s 2023 premiership jumper at Adelaide Oval during last year’s finals for tuppence and my appreciation of this simple item is twofold. Yes, the dual flags (nice win yesterday over Norwood in the Anzac Day grand final rematch with Lachie Hosie kicking eight goals) but the guernsey is my default running top. It’s frequently a conversation starter and when I’m on the beach in the morning a passerby will sometimes say, ‘Go Tigers’ as we puff by each other. I had it on this morning at the Patawalonga parkrun (my 110th, the 200th such local event and day number 729 of my current streak) and it was a fun 5k (24.49 which is decent for me). I’m grateful for footy and running.
Dinner is slowly cooking in the slow cooker. Which is what the label promised, Mr Spock. It’s a beef casserole and I look forward to it. I assembled it late morning with the help of a Ball Park Music playlist. Can you remind me to throw in the beans around six o’clock? Thanks.
It’s a bit of a narrative but Claire has been in receipt of red wine. Needing some for the aforementioned dinner, I opened a bottle of the 2005, McLaren Vale. This was done with nervousness for I anticipated it might have aged as well as the K-Pop song, Gangnam Style.
How is it? It was a little cantankerous during those early minutes, but I commented to Claire that if I’d been trapped in a bottle for twenty years I would be too. I slopped a few generous glugs into the cooker and popping into the kitchen across the afternoon, both casserole and plonk are doing well.
Gundry’s Hill is the natural place for it to commence with its views across our undulating town. There’s St Roses’ spire, a patchwork of roofs, and the silos standing quietly down near the road to Freeling. The vista is smeared green from the trees lining Clare Road, Mildred Street, and Hill Street which is home to the ancient playground and its old black steam train.
We’re now above Dutton Park and its fetching oval protected by those silent eucalypts. If we listen carefully, we can hear the Mickans chuckling and telling stories. It’s a short flight then to the Duck Pond and if it’s a weekend evening there might be half a dozen cars parked haphazardly on the southern bank, near Dermody Petroleum. There are teenagers draped all across the lawns. My friends. From the tape deck of a car, possibly a Gemini or a Kingswood, you hear this soulful song
Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon You come and go You come and go Loving would be easy if your colours were like my dreams Red, gold, and green Red, gold, and green
We then zip over to the swimming pool. On this hot afternoon we see dotted on the grass untidy groups of kids. Zoom in and they’re munching on Bush Biscuits or a Zooper Dooper before running to the diving board. From this they leap off aiming desperately and adolescently at the canteen, run long-sufferingly by Mrs. Chappell. They try to splash her by doing a storkie, arsey or a coffin. They’re tiresome but determined. The supervisor—an elderly Englishman—yells to the skinny boys, ‘Pack it in!’ They ignore him but he yells again. ‘Pack it in or you’ll have a rest for five minutes!’
A short journey and we pause over the Pizza Bar on the Main Street. Johnny Guzzo is the boss. Again, inside there’s some of the town’s youth and they’re huddled about the Formica tables. Some spill onto the footpath, weighted by black duffle coats and ripple boots. With P plates blutacked to their windows, assorted cars lined up outside. There’s a knot of motorbikes too.
Inside by the windows and next to the pinball machines, a mate’s trying for his best ever score on Frogger. He’s trying to cross the river on logs and—be careful—skip over on the backs of hopefully drowsy crocodiles. But he gets munched and the game’s over. He thumps the glass top of the arcade machine. Johnny’s throwing pizza dough up into ever widening circles and hears the racket. ‘Hey! Do that again and I kicka you out!’
It’s 1983 and for one group of kids, they’re in year 12. Seventeen is an age when much happens but you’re no longer a child and not yet an adult. It’s a fraught, fantastic time. Let’s zoom in and see who they are.
*
Here’s Kapunda High’s class of 1983. There’s only thirteen of us although this was boosted by the subsequent return of one Paul Masters, and arrival of Eriko, our Japanese exchange student. Then, of course, most of the fifty-odd who began with us in year 8 had left school for a job. Year 12 was matriculation which meant qualifying for university. It an innocent and wonderous time.
This photo was taken on the croquet lawn at the front of the school. I never saw any croquet but sitting on its grass under the autumn sun was calming and peaceable. And it’s such a picturesque setting that a few short decades later it was where the girl fourth from the left and I would be married. No other location presented itself.
There were only fifteen of us, but I thought us an unruly collective. All day long we laughed and yelled and interrupted each other. Thirty years on, talking in the footy club with Macca—our beloved History teacher Paul McCarthy—he told me we were, ‘bright and well-behaved. A really great group.’ In 1983 I sat in a corner next to Chrisso and Davo and we did much together.
Claire and Trish and I had long enjoyed our triangular friendship, and this continued. There were a couple of classmates with whom I barely exchanged words. I didn’t dislike them; we just had little in common and I hope they’re happy and well.
*
Our matric centre was at the front of the school just near the croquet lawn. It was down the cement steps and in Kidman’s bequeathed mansion, Eringa, it had been a servant’s bedroom. A tiny room, it could only fit ten or a dozen of us around the little student tables.
A blackboard hung to the side and an old gas heater sat above the mantle and we’d use it to toast sandwiches until we weren’t permitted. A corridor ran around two of the walls and our individual carrells were lined up there. How lucky that we had our own private desks? Much of our year was spent at these.
In that little classroom we’d conversations which influenced us. Mrs. Schultz, our gentle and wise English teacher, chaperoned us through The Grapes of Wrath with the Joads as they made their emblematic and weighty way from Oklahoma to California through the Mojave Desert.
I recall my terror as she and Trish talked at length about the novel’s symbolism, focusing upon the turtle crossing a highway and how it represented struggle, determination, and hope. Committed to making my own life difficult, I read many Steinbeck novels over the summer and loved them. But, of course, I didn’t finish the compulsory Grapes of Wrath, and generally only saw the turtle as a turtle.
Our Australian History teacher, Mr. Krips, escorted us through a study of our national identity and the apotheosis of the nomad tribe. I’d not encountered the word apotheosis before. It wasn’t used on the cricket, even by Richie Benaud or by Graham Kennedy on Blankety Blanks. It impressed me and I vowed to keep it in my vocabulary as I thought it could have future value. I swiftly forgot it.
Of equal value was the extra-curricular stuff we learnt from our teachers. The girl fourth from the left and Trish always had enthusiasm for curating our experiences and so set up communal diaries in big scrap books. Quickly becoming known as the Crap Books, these enjoyed daily entries, with some contributing more than others. Occasionally Kripsy did too. How great was he? Early in the year he noted the discovery of a musical gem.
Last night I saw Marvin Gaye on TV singing, ‘Sexual Healing’ which was terrific. What a voice! What a performance!
It is a great tune and now when I hear it I instantly think of Kripsy and that tiny, windowless classroom. I hear it with fondness for my classmates and teachers and that fleeting, singular time and place.
Get up, get up, get up, get up Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up
Oh, baby now let’s get down tonight!
*
The Coorong is a distance from Kapunda, south of the mouth of the Murray. Until our matric year, school camps had been breezy and amusing affairs. More like holidays than educational experiences. As we had to study both a science and a humanities subject, I found myself in Biology and had to undertake a special personal project. For reasons which over time have only become more bleakly absurd, I was about to immerse myself in the heady, sparkling world of Banksias.
Yes, my teenaged fantasies were all becoming real. I would undertake a vegetation transect. It’s not, however, as glamorous as it sounds.
We stayed in rustic accommodation with Mr. Zanker and Miss Searle. Curiously, I would work with Mr. Zanker decades later at Marryatville High where I taught his daughter in year 12. In 1983, there were about eight of us in Biology and we drove down on Sunday. I recollect none of the journey.
It was cold and grey but one night by a shared metal sink I had a novel experience. One of my classmates, the girl fourth from the left, leant towards me, giggling, and announced, ‘Hey you. Listen to this!’ A brief subterranean rumble followed. We both collapsed into laughter. It was the first time I’d heard a girl fart.
This remains the clear highlight of that camp.
Monday morning was grim and wretched, and it began to rain. I was utterly alone in the middle of a forest of banksias. My task was to measure all sorts of variables like tree height, number of banksia flowers, distance between trees, and other things too hideously dull to itemise for you now.
Until then I think I was a kid who just got on with stuff. But this was new for it was an obligation in which I had zero interest. It was a necessity and there was no escape. I sat on the wet ground and my bum became damp. Three more days of this! I reckon it was the first time in my life I was truly bored. Even now I twitch if I see a Banksia. They’re for life, not just the Coorong.
It gave me a glimpse into the dark world of adulthood responsibility. I didn’t like it.
I’m about seven. We—Mum and Dad and my sister, Jill— were visiting people at their Yorke Peninsula shack. I don’t recall the afternoon’s crabbing but gathering later about a table in the childhood-hot evening. On it were long necks of Southwark while a black and white tele flickered against the fibro. The adults bashed the crimson crabs and busted open the tepid claws.
I could smell vinegar.
This table was Formica and from the 60’s—today doubtless worth a minor fortune with its chrome trim and retro mint top.
Just like the elegantly vintage tables now out the back of The Wheaty, Adelaide’s finest music pub. A large floor lamp’s on the side of the stage—turned off and quiet. Bulbous, orange lightshades dangle from the ceiling, evoking Disco Inferno and its eleven-minute polyester frenzy. Galvanised iron clads the northern wall. The space represents as a twilight Sunday backyard crossed with a 70’s lounge room.
I can almost smell fondue.
Pizza (pepperoni) from the food van and craft beers are our prelude. Their website boasts there’s, ‘no skinny lagers or low-carb blands.’
We’re here for Dave Graney and Clare Moore.
*
The funniest nominal group in music is at the end of this verse. Using the head noun: cowboy it employs pre-modifiers in an amusing string of adjectives. It’s central to Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Where I Hide—a narrative song that’s part stand-up routine, part wish fulfilment.
Anyway People started to talk Started to talk about this Legendary mysterious loudmouth invisible rock singer cowboy
*
I’m rereading Catcher in the Rye and tonight’s music conjures Salinger. Short stories in sonic form. Graney loves intertextuality—his song Warren Oates nods to Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia—and I make my own connections.
Holden Caulfield’s narration comes to mind
He wrote this terrific book of short stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you never heard of him. The best one in it was “The Secret Goldfish.” It was about this little kid that wouldn’t let anybody look at his goldfish because he’d bought it with his own money. It killed me.
*
Irony works best on Thursdays.
Certainly not Mondays. Fittingly, we are at The Wheaty on a Thursday, Valentine’s Day eve. Our musical host, Dave Graney doesn’t weaponize irony, he seduces us with it.
How does his appearance amplify this? A dinner suit winking to the safari style. Moustache channelling the pencilled elegance of Clark Gable.
Completing the mythic persona, the hat.
Every so often his voice drifts to Sprechgesang— the German term for half-sung, half-spoken delivery. This elevates the irony.
Once, Graney woke up and immediately thought about how the American band Wilco can’t itself wonder vaguely about Wilco when he inescapably does. Is this American cultural hegemony? We then hear Wilco Got No Wilco.
Festival favourites – out of shape guys in denim Happy to be home – happy to be there Romans! Legionnaires! We saw the white sails
Between songs he muses, ‘I have many guitars.’ Dave then turns to his wife Clare, behind her drum kit, and says, ‘Clare’s playing her B drum kit. The A kit’s home in the studio.’
Turning to the bassist, he asks, ‘Is this your A bass?’ Then, pre-emptively, with a flourish that borders the reverential and the sardonic: ‘It’s his John Cougar Mellencamp bass.’
*
Black Statesman ‘73
Caprice.
Leaded.
The thrilling opening of Feelin’ Kinda Sporty is a triumph of nostalgic parochialism. It’s as Australian as Skyhooks. Or Gough. Or begrudging affection for the Gold Coast.
Is Graney applauding that this marque gulped leaded (super) petrol? I hope so. I bet he once drove a lumpen V8.
What a car.
*
Out the back of The Wheaty we have an evening of wry storytelling. But it’s also an invitation—to view our prickly world through Graney’s secluded and exceptional window.
His lyrics suggest imagist poetry which originated a century ago: lean, distilled, potent.
Its famed example is Ezra Pound’s In a Station of the Metro. This two-line couplet captures a scene of bustling commuters waiting on a train platform:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd
Petals on a wet, black bough
*
Tonight, there are no girl meets boy stories. But there’s affection of a different, uncommon kind. Commemorations of the minor and minuscule. We take excursions into Graney’s head and its sometimes lurid, always lush, jungle.
The second song of the encore is Night of the Wolverine, featuring this cinematic pan. Memoir or fiction? It doesn’t matter.
Free beer and chicken man, and hotel rooms Hired cars, alligator boots A scarf over the lampshade Black tape over the window
Graney’s music chaperones us to places humid and strange—where the ceiling fan’s revolving slowly, ice clinks in a frosty tumbler, and irony is a welcome, surprising seductress.
It’s a bright day and there’s optimism everywhere; ideal to begin the summer of Test cricket. The city by Corio Bay’s vibrant and cheerful people stream up and down the waterfront. I’m dining with eight chaps, and we’re all connected by the communal and effervescent Footy Almanac. Today’s lunch is all about conversation: a delightful jumble of 1970’s SANFL, Gough, and the far-flung places we’ve lived from Darwin to Tassie to England.
*
I love cricket. I love going to Adelaide Oval and feeling its captivating pull as I cross the Torrens footbridge. I love watching it on TV—especially when Tim Lane’s commenting. But cricket on the car radio is a unique joy. Following the Geelong lunch, I’m driving back to Point Lonsdale, and I poke at the hire car’s screen and get Australia v India on. The first session’s underway, and I’m eight again. Through the speakers flows the crowd noise with its comforting hum, the whip crack of willow on leather, even the aural assurance of the hyperventilating commentators with their, ‘Starc in, bowls… Big noise! There’s a shout…’
It’s as summery as slamming screen doors, fish and chips by the beach, and those ticking nights when it’s still thick and pizza-oven hot at midnight.
*
We’re here as Claire’s the Auslan interpreter for the Queenscliff Music Festival (the Auslan). Murray Wiggle and Jeff Wiggle are doing a DJ set. Claire gets a backstage photo and chats with them. Her brother Geoff knows both and decades ago they were all in a band. In the big tent young troubadour Jack Botts is playing his wistful guitar pop, and Murray’s just in front of me with his shoulders like a rangy country footballer. I imagine him somewhere like Angaston pulling in a few casual grabs at centre-half forward. As he takes in the music, there’s a ceaseless trickle of fans and he’s kind to all, smiling for a selfie, offering each a few minutes. It’s lovely to see.
*
Saturday morning and I’m in Portarlington for their park run. It’s a quarter to eight and the air is dense and unmoving. Gathering by a tree on a gravel path we’re alongside Port Phillip Bay and just under a hundred of us set off. Ambling along, I peer through the close murk and see the Melbourne CBD, a silhouette of grey and black and imposing quiet. There are dual hills to finish the course, but these are gentler than I’d heard. Making my way back to Point Lonsdale I listen to 3RRR and drive through Indented Head and St. Leonards. Both are daggy—unpretentious and a little outdated—but hugely appealing.
*
Watching Claire perform at the festival is a joy given her distinctive skill and focus. It’s mesmerising and humbling for I understand not a single sign. She interprets for CW Stoneking, a Katherine native who adopts a Southern persona complete with Mississippi drawl. He plays hypnotic blues music that could be a century old. Backstage, Claire asked him to explain one of his lyrics, and he replied, ‘I don’t know what it means.’ Sometimes, on stage when speaking between songs, he slips briefly, almost imperceptibly, back into his Territorian accent.
*
Other mornings in Point Lonsdale I run along the beach or through town. The town oval hugs the bay, and an underage cricket match is underway. The pitch is Gabba grass. Most of the players are in whites but the batsman’s in jeans. Nostalgia pricks at me as I pass. I also run west past the lighthouse and down onto the endless beach. I don’t usually run on the sand, instead preferring an esplanade but this morning’s forced path’s a revelation. Rather than being by the beach, and a spectator to the surf, I’m a participant. The waves are closer, their roar is louder and the air’s muggier. I’m now converted to sand running, immersed rather than observing, and it feels enlivening—physically and spiritually. Vast cargo ships pull themselves sluggishly in and out of the bay.
*
Monday, we zig and zag across the peninsula through towns like Clifton Springs and Wallington. It seems to function like the Fleurieu: a relaxed retreat for the neighbouring city folk. We take our lunch at the Rolling Pin bakery in Ocean Grove. My pie is massive and collapses on my plate, so I collect a knife and fork. Claire’s baked good is more cooperative. A PE teacher tramps in, local primary school polo shirt on, a Cleveland Cavaliers lanyard dangling, and a silver ring of keys jingling in his pocket.
Jeff the goat lived in Tiger Mountain State Forest near Seattle. He had a long, white, wispy beard and he played a guitar and sang.
Well, sort of.
When Jeff strummed his guitar and sang the bears and the cougars and even the fish in the streams would flee. He was truly, utterly, completely awful and the noise was like someone had thrown a bicycle into a nasty crushing machine.
Twangy-bangy-bah-boo-burr-chomp-crunch! Jeff played it again. He liked the sound of it. ‘Gee, I’m so good,’ Jeff said to himself.
Twangy-bangy-bah-boo-burr-chomp-crunch! Right then, two bears, four cougars and even the slowest fish in the Tiger Mountain State Forest fled.
Suddenly, Jeff stopped playing his guitar. He cleared his goaty throat and his long, white, wispy beard drifted about in the breeze. Turning to his goat-sister Peggy he declared in a squeaky, goaty voice, “I am going to Seattle to be a famous guitarist!”
Peggy’s goaty eyes widened. “Oh, no Jeff. You can’t go! Your home is here in Tiger Mountain State Forest.” A tear ran down her goaty face towards her long, white, wispy beard. Peggy gulped, “I’ll miss you. Please stay here with me.”
Jeff reared up onto his back two legs and in his squeaky goat voice he shouted, “I am going to be a famous guitarist, and no one can stop me. Especially not you Peggy!”
And with a huff Jeff the Goat scrambled away, his hooves click-clacking on the rocks.
He did not look back at his sister Peggy. Her long, wispy, white beard was drenched with tears.
The air was fresh, and the sun sent down golden shafts of warm light as Jeff trotted along the track. In the distance he heard a bear growl and Jeff shouted to the sky, “You don’t worry me Mr Bear for I’m going to Seattle to be a famous guitarist!” He laughed and lifted his goaty hooves higher and faster. Fame and fortune would soon be his!
Goat-scurrying along Jeff stopped by a sign and read it aloud. ‘Poo Poo Point Hiking Trail!’ His beard danced in the crisp mountain breeze. ‘I’m going the right way if I’m on Poo Poo Point Hiking Trail. I’m close.’
Over the trees Jeff saw a shiny tower stretching towards the clouds. ‘Yes,’ he yelled, ‘The Seattle Space Needle! I’ll play my guitar and sing to celebrate.”
The noise was so horrid that two sparrows flew away. They didn’t stop until they landed on the North Pole. Jeff didn’t hear them flap away as he was smiling at his own song. He trotted on.
Friday night in Seattle and cars honked their horns, and the neon lights blinked and shone.
Jeff the goat’s long, white, wispy beard quivered with excitement for in precisely twenty-eight minutes he’d be on Seattle’s Got Talent! He could taste the sweet taste of fame and fortune in his goaty mouth.
A voice boomed out. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from Tiger Mountain State Forest, will you please give it up for Jeeeeeeeefffffffff the gooooooooaaaaaat!’
The curtains drew back. The lights burned into his beady, blinky, goaty eyes and Jeff knew he’d win.
Twangy-bangy-bah-boo-burr-chomp-crunch! Twangy-bangy-bah-boo-burr-chomp-crunch! Now, the crowd at Seattle’s Got Talent was generous and happy but even they had a limit. The windows exploded at the horrible noise.
Twangy-bangy-bah-boo-burr-chomp-crunch! The stage curtains blew away.
Twangy-bangy-bah-boo-burr-chomp-crunch! The lights went dark.
It was so truly, utterly, completely awful that the crowd couldn’t even boo. Jeff the guitar-playing goat was finished. He knew he wouldn’t enjoy fame and fortune.
Pushing open the back door of Seattle’s Got Talent, Jeff stepped into the drizzly alleyway.
‘Oh, Jeff,’ a goaty voice squeaked from beneath a streetlight. ‘Can I give you a hug?’
It was Peggy.
‘Oh, Peggy. I’m so sorry.’ Jeff put his hooves around his goat-sister. ‘I’ve made such a fool of myself, and I was horrible to you.’
Both their long, white, wispy beards were wet with rain and tears.
Peggy smiled at her brother. ‘It’s OK. Tiger Mountain State Forest and the bears, the cougars and even the fish have missed you. Let’s go home.’
During our annual Carrickalinga getaway I took some conscripts to parkrun at Myponga Reservoir, and I think we all enjoyed our ensemble endeavour. With water, stern hills, and forest it’s a fetching but searching physical test. Leonard rambled over the finish line and Claire and Trish then came down the final hill, legs whizzing not unlike the Tasmanian devil (Taz) in the Looney Tunes cartoons. It was a succession of warm moments across a brisk morning.
*
Cindy Lee is a Canadian band who’s come to recent global attention with their remarkable album Diamond Jubilee. It’s not on Spotify or vinyl but available as a single two-hour track on YouTube. Hypnotic and haunting, it evokes 1960’s girl groups and also features jangly guitars bouncing across its thirty-two songs. It put me in mind of buskers you might happen upon somewhere off-beat like Boise, Idaho.
*
Alain de Botton is an author I love to re-visit and this year he’s been in frequent demand. With Claire and I in an unbroken, anticipatory conversation about overseas trips, I was keen to purchase a book of his I’d previously appreciated. On level two of Adelaide’s Myer Centre is the most excellent Page and Turner, a sprawling second-hand bookstore and from here I bought The Art of Travel. The exquisitely observed prose possesses a deep, almost meditative fluency, and early in this work, he depicts the wonder of flight:
This morning the plane was over the Malay Peninsula, a phrase in which there lingers the smells of guava and sandalwood. And now, a few metres above the earth which it has avoided for so long, the plane appears motionless, its nose raised upwards, seeming to pause before its sixteen rear wheels meet the tarmac with a blast of smoke that makes manifest its speed and weight.
*
The glow from Glenelg’s SANFL victory continues. Given the ultimate margin of five points and with only one score in the final seven minutes, the tension was sustained at stratospheric levels. The sole behind came from Tiger forward Lachie Hosie hitting the post; itself among our game’s most theatrical events and a unique scoring outcome among world sports. Contrastingly, in rugby, soccer, and American football if a goal post is brushed, the ball’s destination is all that counts: inside the goal is good and deflected away means nothing. The notion of the behind as a reward for goal-kicking inaccuracy seems distinctly Australian and effectively announces, ‘That’s not a goal, but good effort. Here, have a point!’
*
Amidst the Carrickalinga escape, we spent a stout hour aboard the Yankalilla pub beer garden. This was an instructive text with the conversation moving from Asian and European travel to domestic matters. Returning to the holiday home, we’re welcomed by an array of aromatic curries which had been patiently preparing themselves in that most spiritually comforting of appliances: the slow cooker.
*
One Hand Clapping is a new Paul McCartney documentary I saw one Sunday with Max and his mate Ethan. It includes songs recorded in the Abbey Road studios for Band on the Run and we witness him playing the guitar, the bass, the piano, and singing in his honeyed, jubilant tenor. He appears ignorant of his own seemingly easy genius and captivating enthusiasm, and I was reminded of this: when his former band split, McCartney was devastated for more than anybody on the adoring planet, he loved the Beatles.
*
Alex and his school friend Judd camped in the Adelaide Hills to make a found-footage horror film for which Alex wrote an 8,000-word script. A chief challenge over the three days would be keeping phones and video cameras charged at their powerless camp site. I overheard Alex explaining how to solve this problem they would, ‘go to the pub for a schnitzel and plug in their devices there.’ First words, first steps, first day at school. Add to the accumulation of milestones: first pub schnitzel.
Trundling along the murky esplanade, dawn was hiding behind the Adelaide Hills. To the west the ocean lay as if it too were asleep making me the sole speck of animated life. Some mornings are crisp and the world’s in sharp, razored focus. Today, the sky was fuddled and uncertain.
A distant, descending plane hung silently; its light frozen against the darkness like a lamp. Looming over the seascape, the burning, off-white moon threatened as if in an old horror film. The ghostly glow illuminated my plodding path and connected night and day.
Considering nature’s ravenous fire and the minuteness of human life, I kept running.
*
As is my happy habit I’m eternally re-reading The Sportswriter series and am on the final novel. The prose is often startling in its magnificence and makes me inwardly gasp. I forever find literary diamonds in these and Be Mine offers this scene at Mt. Rushmore:
Just now, as if propelled from the mountain itself, a helicopter- tiny- materializes down out of the marbled heavens, high-tailed and insect-like, and for all of us along the viewing wall, soundless. It passes on string through the grainy air, tilts to starboard, seems for a moment to pause, then slides away, changes course and makes a dreamlike pass close to the presidential physiognomies, comes about again, tail swaying, makes a pass the other way, so that whoever’s inside get the fullest view up close.
The author, Richard Ford, has a rare sensitivity to the splendor and joy of words.
*
Originating in Athens, Georgia, REM was primarily a guitar band, and courtesy of singer Michael Stipe’s lyrics, they presented the world opaquely. Their jangling sounds were, for example, sometimes accompanied by a mandolin and sometimes by arena-sized grungy bombast, but REM’s most gorgeous track is one of which acclaimed keyboardists, Elton John and Ben Folds would be proud. ‘Nightswimming’ is a piano delight, penned and played by the band’s polymath bassist, Mike Mills. The circular motif is at once fragile but also driven, serenely.
It features on the album Automatic for the People, a meditative, melancholy record that gave opportune shape and meaning to my West Coast life when it was released three decades’ back. ‘Nightswimming’ is a prayer to nostalgia, friendship, and summer’s end. Spending time with the song this week, its embrace is that of a dear, old companion.
Nightswimming, remembering that night September’s coming soon I’m pining for the moon And what if there were two Side by side in orbit around the fairest sun?
This bakery isn’t actually on the Brighton jetty. Where would they put the oven? Next to the crab nets? Atop the mobile phone tower? Adjacent to yoof soaring off the end in their best swimming jeans?
Browsing the menu board, I note the sweets are decidedly Germanic with strudel (okay, Habsburg Empire) and Berliner buns but as we know, gobble down one of these for morning tea and by lunchtime you’ve invaded Poland.
This is balanced diplomatically with the euphorically English in buns both London and Kitchener; the latter named boldly in 1915 as a South Australian act of wartime alliance to geezer field marshal, Lord Kitchener.
I’ve not witnessed such graphic geopolitics since Sunday night’s Eurovision voting with the UK again achieving the ignominy of yet another nul points (in the public voting category). This means their (lame) entry has not been awarded a single point just like Bluto’s grade point average in Animal House as declared by Faber College head, Dean Wormer.
Zero. Point. Zero.
How fantastic was the late Sir Terry Wogan as the British host of the world’s most kitsch event? I still admire his tradition of pouring himself a drink immediately after the ninth song and maintaining a ferocious pace throughout the final. During a telecast he once asked,
Who knows what hellish future lies ahead? Actually, I do, I’ve seen the rehearsals.
My roadside table is magnificently located with endless blue sky above, the skating rink flatness of the azure sea to my west and northwards, the uncluttered BWS drive through, advertising cheap wine and a three-day growth.
Munch. The roll’s pastry is oilier than Estonia’s hip-hop entry called, ‘(Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi’ which as you can visibly tell concerns drug horror. Oddly enough the song finished in twentieth place, and I rank today’s pastry also at twenty on the list of snag roll reviews. This is a spectacular achievement given this is my tenth such evaluation.
Whilst substantial of girth, the innards of my purchase are excessively reserved in their representations of flavour and aroma. From the proximate gutter I get a whiff of crushed Bundy can and decide the roll could use a little of its aggressive tang. Australia’s 2025 Eurovision entry should be an ode to crushed Bundy cans, everywhere, performed by Chad Morgan. He’s always in brash costume.
Still, it’s been a delightful autumnal outing for which I’m most pleased. Although he was referring to Eurovision, maybe Terry Wogan’s words apply here to my sporadically disappointing sausage roll escapades
Every year I expect it to be less foolish, and every year it is more so.
It’s likely the best four-word sentence after, ‘I love you too.’ But it might be unsurpassed on a Friday at 5pm.
Of course I speak of, ‘Yes, it’s happy hour.’
Speaking to us the (responsible) server of drinks smiled and then we did too. What a marvellously imagined and wonderous abode was this world! Bursting with uncomplicated joys and happy whisperings.
And the clock had indeed struck five on Belair Road in Kingswood country. Claire requested a white wine while I went on beer holiday with a Pirate Life Pale Ale. We were in the Torrens Arms, home pub of my old footy club, The Unley Jets, which could be why despite my anonymity I was gifted a complimentary beer. Now I insert into this story the first in a series of outwardly random but thematically relevant song lyrics: My motto’s always been, ‘When it’s right, it’s right.’
Pulling into the carpark earlier, the tavern was snug and confident, a site of sanctuary, with its honeyed brickwork and pretty façade soaked in slanting autumnal light. Everything’s a little clearer in the light of day.
We scurried through the vacant dining room (too early even for fugitive Queensland pensioners) and arrived in the murmuring bar, ordered refreshment, and then decided where we’d drop anchor. Why wait until the middle of a cold, dark night?
With singlets stretched about truckers’ torsos and raucous toddlers and loud, unaware types, in this affluent suburb, beer gardens are instead known as courtyards. Likely lingering after lunch, some chaps occupy a neighbouring spot. Sunny weekend music coasts overhead. It’s a relaxed, alluring place and against the wall rests a bike and across the yard we see smears of vaguely green plants. In the outside dusk we claim a corner table.
Claire’s impressed and offered an affirming, ‘I could settle in here.’ I nod.
However, we hear grating traffic noise and our ill-disciplined eyes stray onto the vampiric screens and their Fox Footy pre-game jabber.
To better explore the Torrens Arms, we later relocate to a secluded nook near the bistro. Easing into the lush chairs by the fetching gas fire, we catch the distant, hazy tones of ‘Afternoon Delight’ by The Starland Vocal Band and are serenaded by its soft-focus lyrics
Thinkin’ of you’s workin’ up my appetite Lookin’ forward to a little afternoon delight Rubbin’ sticks and stones together make the sparks ignite And the thought of lovin’ you is gettin’ so excitin’
How did Simon Townsend allow it to be the (admittedly short-lived) theme song to 80’s kiddy favourite Wonder World. Imagine Woodrow’s disapproval at its doggy-style suggestibility! Still, Claire and I agree it’s a fine, old, nostalgic song, inspired by a ‘happy hour experience’ in Washington, DC.
Jettisoning the pub, I note a poster advertising their Mother’s Day paint ‘n’ sip event. Is this the new communal knitting or line-dancing or pottery? For Father’s Day will I endure an awful Change the Roo-Shootin’ Ute’s Oil ‘n’ Drink Rumbo Experience? It’s a shame as I started out this mornin’ feelin’ so polite.
Otherwise, edition #42 of Mystery Pub’s been a genteel, calming affair in many senses – a true afternoon delight.
‘Just as we were amazed to look out at the sea on the Cinque Terre, people must come here and think the same. The view is beautiful,’ offered Claire.
‘I’m sure that’s true,’ I replied instantly, if a little ungenerously.
About 5.30pm on Friday, we’d somehow snaffled a table on the balcony at the Glenelg Surf Club. The waters of Gulf St. Vincent were flat and dazzling and postcardy. To our south the squat jetty swarmed with folks and kids, leaping into the drink, from the pylons. I hoped some had on their best swimming jeans.
Having established a theme, Claire pursued it with relaxed tenacity. ‘If there were tourists staying in the city, I reckon they’d really enjoy it in here. Don’t you think?’
I love a surf club, too. They’re proudly local and chances are your beer will be served by a young, often uncertain, clubbie getting up a few volunteer hours. The prices are decent, the grub’s often excellent and you know your coin’s doing communal good.
We then bought (unsuccessful) tickets in the meat raffle and this was also a petite joy.
To celebrate this tremendous fortune, we had a bag of chips (not my idea, I confess) and then discussed how our British friends are probably wise to call these crisps to differentiate them from their direct-from-the-deep-fryer brethren. It would save us the frequent indignity of this conversation:
Shall we get some chips?
Sure. Hot chips or cold chips?
Cold.
Why don’t we call them crisps in Australia?
Yeah, like the Poms. Would make life easier.
Dunno.
*
Vampire Weekend
After five years, one of my favourite bands dropped (nobody releases music anymore) two new songs, ‘Capricorn’ and ‘Gen-X Cops.’ The former is wonderfully atmospheric and reminiscent of their acclaimed 2013 album Modern Vampires of the City with its introspective lyrics about the past and our fragile hopes. Musically, there’s a lovely piano solo, string accompaniment, and a fetching melody that echoes some of their finest moments on tracks such as ‘Step’ and my desert island certainty, ‘Hannah Hunt.’
Claire and I saw Vampire Weekend at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre as part of their Father of the Bride tour in January 2020. It was magnificent with 27 songs played across nearly three hours. About four songs in that night the stage lost power twice and we feared our night would be unhappily early, but the faceless electricians got the voltage happening and the show went on. On the third attempt, they got through the delightfully named, ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.’
For me their music is literate and fun and smart. It connects to Paul Simon’s Graceland in style and execution. When it’s out in April, just after Easter, I’ll be all over the new album, Only God Was Above Us.
*
Roast Beef
Although it’s February we decided to have a Saturday roast. It’d been months since our last, probably in winter and so we enlisted the appropriately named Beefmaster barbeque and utilized the indirect method (does sound like an unsatisfactory form of contraception).
Is there a more comforting sound than that of a hunk of beef spitting and sizzling in the pan?
Food often lacks an accompanying musical score, so this is always a welcome domesticated commotion. I find the challenge is to just leave it alone and not lift the lid too frequently. I treat the meat like a kind of culinary Schrodinger’s Cat, wanting to peer at it constantly as if it’s slow art, thus lengthening maddeningly, the cooking time. Preparing a roast is best done as a duet with Claire being the gently guiding Dolly to my slightly dazed and doddery Kenny.
It was affirming ye olde fayre with the roasted cauliflower (is it really the poor cousin of broccoli; methinks not) and Belgium’s finest cabbage derivative, brussel sprouts, both emerging as unlikely stars and receiving a sitting/ standing ovation from us.
At 6.37pm on the patio attending to the soothing symphony coming from under the rangehood and nursing a sparkling ale (me) and gin (Claire) all was (briefly) right in our tiny beachy nook.
This cassette came my way when I was twelve. A Christmas gift from Mum and Dad. It made a deep impact upon me, and I’d wanted it for ages. Like a head-banded DK Lillee bowling, or Rick Davies playing footy for Sturt in the ’76 grand final, the pure and impressionable skill with which the gawky blokes of LRB harmonised made me quite starstruck. I imagine even then I was monstrously tone-deaf.
On my little tape player, I had this on repeat and at volume. Hearing it now on vinyl it rushes me back to 1978. Of course, I had no idea what the songs were about other than vague adult notions of love. As Claire noted, the vocal highlight is the dense opening line to ‘Reminiscing’ with their internal rhyme of ‘late’ and ‘gate’ and the exciting urgency. We’ve eighteen syllables following a trochaic (stressed-unstressed) rhythm-
Friday night it was late I was walking you home we got down to the gate And I was dreaming of the night Would it turn out right?
I’ve much gratitude for this gift from my parents and the effortlessly transportive nature of the music. Yes, it’s probably a bit soulless and as smooth as cat poo but it’s forever connected to my childhood.
Among the torrent of music that comes from Alex’s room is jazz and noise rock and the Beatles. I was surprised and secretly thrilled when I recently heard the slick tones of LRB and their deathless harmonies.
I took this during the official ceremony prior to the recent Test at Adelaide Oval. It’s Claire about to perform as the Auslan interpreter for Cricket Australia. I love these moments when the private and the public collide although I generally keep my thoughts in my head.
I was proud and thrilled and would like to have prodded the bucket-hatted bloke next to me in the Members’ and said, “How good is this? She’s very talented, oh, and by the way, I’m her husband.’ What a unique skillset. Other than for a post-match ‘kick and catch’ I’ve not trod on this hallowed turf so well done, Claire!
Utterly impractical and ridiculous. The car or the owner? Good question. I bought it in early 1991. Sadly, the odometer stopped working when it’d done 297,000-something and shortly after I sold it. I imagine, it then went, in an automotive sense, to God. I expect most of these are now in wrecking yards or serving as artificial reefs, home to snapper and sharks.
Commencing a long trip to or from Kimba, I’d often slide in Nevermind by Nirvana and spin the volume knob hard right. It was fun to pilot. I loved the sunroof, but it was noisy on the highway.
Still, it amused me and bemused my friends. I’ve now recovered although I’ll never surrender and own a station wagon, not even a Wagon Queen Family Truckster like the Griswolds on Vacation.
For me, the former wins more than it should. But sometimes disinterest rears up like a startled horse and I make an utterly sensible decision.
In July of 1993 I bought a pair of boots and trudged about in them for decades, across continents. I wore them to work. I wore them to the footy. I wore them everywhere.
During recent years when they began to require frequent repairs, I determined that new soles and patched holes in the leather toes were just steps to guarantee the immortality of my beloved boots.
I’d be buried in them.
But one day in September I drove to an Op Shop on the Broadway, flipped open the collection bin lid, and deposited my boots. They’d become heavy to wear and almost curmudgeonly. I now saw them through different eyes.
Suddenly, we were done, and surgical detachment triumphed. I didn’t stare at them wistfully, shed a lonesome tear or even have a rush of cinematic vision, showing thirty years of life’s high (and low) lights of me in my boots.
I then made my way to the kiosk where I looked at the beach and sipped a cappuccino and relished the cheerful afternoon breeze.
*
Claire’s car is also in its third decade. No mere toiler, it’s a treat to pilot: compact, nippy, and gently joyous. It zips along Anzac Highway like a nimble fawn.
Having done 435,000 kilometres, I’ve been wondering about the time it’ll need replacement. Looking online at the cost of similar vehicles we may need to up the insurance for it seems to be worth more than I thought. Evaluating the RAV 4’s condition has triggered some introspection and a rediscovery of personal values on longevity and utility.
But I hope we can celebrate the half a million milestone when it should get a signed telegram from the King or at least someone in the Palace who can use a pen.
I now feel refurbished sentimentality for this precious motor and its unswerving everydayness. It could star in its own Little Golden Book.
*
On Boxing Day, the transformative power of objects again grabbed me. By the airport I drove past a sprawling discount shopping centre, sat fat and foolish. Cars were parked chaotically in the creek bed, nose-to-tail on the verges and, if I checked, likely on top of each other too. Instead, I went to Mr. V’s record store on Semaphore Road. He offers no festive discounts.
Exploring vinyl albums is a sentimental experience. I am returned to being a teenager and these artefacts lead to a wholly immersive bliss. While I enjoy flicking through the modern releases, I find a deeper delight at the 70’s and 80’s section where my younger self forever lives. Rationing this indulgence, I ponder purchasing one of these:
The Boys Light Up– Australian Crawl
Straight in a Gay, Gay World– Skyhooks
Place Without a Postcard– Midnight Oil.
Rather I zoom across the Pacific and buy Hotel California. It’s unstoppably captivating and I’ve always surrendered to its narrative power. Kapunda’s a long way from the Hollywood and Beverly Hills setting of these songs but my connection is strong as steel.
Listening is a cheerfully simple, analogue experience. With a crackle the needle descends on The Eagles and I’m again in a boxy Kingswood patrolling the homely streets of Kapunda. It’s the clumsy sway of the last dance at high school socials (formals or proms to some of you). It’s the boyish allure of American cityscapes.
*
What to finally make of dumping my boots, refreshed appreciation for Claire’s car, and the untarnished radiance of an adolescent record? The past is seldom still, but sometimes rushes at us like a rampaging bull and leaves me standing in its dust, bewildered. I’m caught between nostalgia’s gilded cage and reality’s sharpening edges.
I bought my new turntable a house-warming gift yesterday.
Lenny’s Records on Henley Beach Road is near my work and poking through the racks, I contemplated Aja by Steely Dan and Living in the Seventies by Skyhooks before deciding on Bob Dylan’s tour de force, Blood on the Tracks. Nothing says welcome like an iconic album.
Living (mostly) alone decades previously in a farmhouse south of Wudinna, this CD was a Sunday evening ritual. With its warm songs of love and looming heartbreak, Dylan was excellent company, and offered much to ponder every rich listening.
On wintry nights I’d get the fireplace a-roarin’ and his wit and poetry were cantankerous comfort as the acoustic guitar and Minnesotan twang sprung about my big, empty home.
‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ remains an uplifting song about impending hurt and there’s gleeful despair in the verse
I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula
Yer gonna have to leave me now I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.
Given the name’s lyricism, I’d like to visit Ashtabula, Ohio.
*
On Thursday evening with old Kimba friends Bazz and Annie we enjoyed the world’s greatest compilation album which, of course, is Ripper 76. Among its curios is the theme song from everybody’s favourite show, Happy Days.
Over Coopers and pepperoni pizza, we spoke of this, and I mentioned how The Fonz (Henry Winkler to others) is touring Adelaide next year to promote his biography and Claire will be the Auslan interpreter. How great is this? The other day I asked, ‘Happy Days began when we were about ten. Did you ever imagine you’d work with The Fonz?’ I hope she asks who’s his preferred Tuscadero: Leather or Pinky?
*
Having met Paul McCartney, the English singer Noel Gallagher from Oasis was asked how he felt and replied, ‘Macca’s a legend. It were fooking great. I mean my favourite band is Wings.’ Wednesday afternoon I popped on the triple live album, Wings Across America and loved side four’s closing track, ‘Listen to What the Man Said.’
Soldier boy kisses girl
Leaves behind a tragic world
But he won’t mind, he’s in love
And he says love is fine
It’s emblematic of McCartney’s enticing optimism and talent for a likable melody. However, Tom Scott’s soprano saxophone solo is the happy highlight, and I appreciated it soaring out across our summery garden.
My new turntable and I were getting on superbly.
*
I was reassured to read that Neil Diamond was in my top five Spotify artists for 2023 along with Karen Carpenter heir apparent Weyes Blood, Lana Del Ray, The Beatles, and Belle and Sebastian. This is largely founded on Hot August Night being our Friday evening ritual (imposed by me). It’s a splendid, intensely familiar way to farewell the week and muster in the weekend.
So last night on the patio with Christmas lights twinkling and candles flickering I dropped the needle on side three (it’s good to mix it up) and its exquisite ‘Play Me’ with
You are the sun, I am the moon
You are the words, I am the tune
Play me
Of course, on the second verse Diamond sings, ‘Songs you sang to me/Songs you brang to me.’ Brang? Yet again, Claire and I had the conversation during which we agreed passionately that English is a cruel language and yes, the past tense of bring should plainly be brang.
*
Late Sunday in Tanunda for a music festival, Claire and I had a brief chat with Here’s Humphrey star, retired naturopath and former deputy mayor of the Barossa, Patsy Biscoe.
Smiling, Alex returned to the secure fence of the Vines Stage. He’d been backstage meeting one of his adored bands, Bryon Bay’s own, Babe Rainbow. In the mosh-less pit, we’d stood right up the front for their mid-afternoon set and fittingly, the sun had spilled across the parklands for their summery psychedelia.
Inspired by Tame Impala, I loved their songs too and was pleased the bright, swirling music appealed to Alex. His day was already complete although we still had hours ahead of us. And here he was with his shirt signed and photos freshly pinged to his girlfriend Harriet, grinning like a shot fox.
*
An Auslan interpreter, my wife Claire’s working at Harvest Rock, and thanks to her around my neck I had a backstage pass. Walking from the car to the artists’ village I note each portable change room has a name on it by the plain door. Julia Jacklin, Baker Boy, Vera Blue.
I then pass a hunched, shuffling fellow wearing a beige jacket. He nods and I nod back. In the car preparing for the festival, I’d been playing his seminal album Odelay. On CD, of course. How else to return to the glorious, Gen X 90’s? A music icon and perhaps the ultimate Californian. Beck.
Later, I glimpse him alone at a table with a plate of chicken curry.
*
Across the brimming crowd I see Claire on the Auslan stage. American folk rock act The Lemon Twigs is finishing with melodies soaring and guitars blazing. Squeezing through the throng, two girls are pointing at Claire. She’s in black and signing in that remarkable language, expressing lyrics, melody and meaning. One girl says, ‘Isn’t she great?’ Her friend says, ‘Yeah, I love her.’ I smile; an anonymous figure with an undersized Greg Chappell hat atop his oversized head.
*
I’m back in the artist’s village and a big fella paces by. Built like a boxer, he’s familiar and I know his face. In the gathering twilight he gazes at his feet and then I remember him. Rockwiz. It’s Peter ‘Lucky’ Luscombe who drums in Paul Kelly’s band. He’s clenching the drumsticks that will usher in the second verse of Australia’s favourite seasonal song, ‘How to Make Gravy.’ We’ll all sing along to
I guess the brothers are driving down from Queensland
And Stella’s flying in from the coast
I love how the introduction of Luscombe’s drums and their magnificent energy echoes the family travelling home for Christmas. It also foreshadows the pending drama of their tale. I glance over again at his drumsticks, and these are enchanted. He disappears.
*
I’m up the back of the Harvest Stage. I peer up. Encircling us like ancient guardians, gum trees stretch and wave while above is the cityscape, newly impressive now, and emblematic of Adelaide finally being softly buoyant and sure of itself. Between sets, ‘Ego is Not a Dirty Word’ by Skyhooks surges over the blue sky, continuing the day’s uplifting nostalgia. It’s a Sunday BBQ song and my immersion into the world of the festival has arrived.
*
With the dark having risen up from the trampled grass there’s an earthy thrum. On the Vines Stage, Tash Sultana is coaxing all of her instruments to sultry life: guitar, drums, bass, saxophone, keyboard, flute. It all loops about and entangles us with aural warmth. Over on the Auslan stage and all in black among these compelling atmospherics, Claire is now backlit and silhouetted, still providing insight and accessibility.
I have yet another moment.
*
I’m at the back for Paul Kelly’s set and with my eldest son right by the front our generational handover resumes. Alex’s fifteen is more kaleidoscopic and whole-hearted than my fifteen was and this gladdens me. Heading home, I ask his thoughts on Australia’s most treasured minstrel, and he replies, ‘He was excellent.’ Steering down Anzac Highway I beam.
Massive in its fragility, ‘Deeper Water’ is an immaculate distillation of life. Hearing Paul Kelly’s finest composition always forces hot tears, and this festive lawn hosts the latest episode in my story of this song.
Already the unrelenting enthusiast, Alex pushes against the stage in this blue evening’s swiftly chilling air, and at this very moment our lives unfurl together in soaring splendor, and I hope all those optimistic signs I see in him are perfect predictors, and with this isolated, joyful city as a witness, my time tonight has again come too early and too, too late.
A two-minute squirt towards Victor Harbor from our digs at the Bluff. This rickety eatery on the esplanade was bursting last Thursday with folks like us keen for the wood oven pizza or its slightly surprising culinary cousin, North Indian curry. The service was brisk yet relaxed and we inhaled our pizza.
It was fun dining.
The cafe hosts live music and there’s a history lesson as the walls are busy with mounted posters for the iconic acts that have played across the previous two decades, such as Mental As Anything and Ol 55.
Get in there soon to enjoy a Rogan Josh while listening to the Countdown classic, ‘Looking for an Echo.’ It’d be fantastic on a wintry Sunday.
Willowman
Why aren’t there more novels about cricket?
With Test matches allotted five days there’s rich and natural narrative possibilities. I’ve read novels that mention the sport so was thrilled to learn of Willowman which promised a singular attention to the great game.
Inga Simpson’s recent paperback was on my holiday menu and while the plot and characterisation aren’t especially original, the poetic meditations upon batting, music and the patient craft of fashioning beauty are exquisite. Like this section on the main character and Test cricketer
Harrow was using the old Reader bat for the occasion, a deep divot worn in its face…It was yellowed, a few fine cracks in the face, but still beautiful. Some kind of magic at work that it didn’t really age. In the soft English sun, the bat was golden, containing all the hope and possibilities of the game.
I loved reading a chapter or two mid-afternoon, and then napping!
Soul Music
Since the turn of the century this British series has been offering its simple genius.
The producers at BBC Radio 4 take a piece of music and weave together the stories of about five people. The connection: how a particular song features in their lives and became the soundtrack for personal change. There’s the everyday, the tragic and the wryly comedic centred on the transformative power of music. It’s compelling storytelling and gives insight into some remarkable art.
Last Saturday night Claire and I dragged the beanbags out onto the back lawn and listened to episodes on Nick Cave’s ‘Into My Arms’, U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ and following a stroll around the block, John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads.’
I was inspired to play the live version from Rattle and Hum which features the Voices of Freedom choir and late in the song Bono and U2 allow them to take over. It’s spinetingling.
The Banshees of Inisherin
Darkly comedic, this is an essay on male friendship and the complex consequences of its failure. Set against the Irish Civil War we, like the main characters, Pádraic and Colm, are vulnerable to their island’s claustrophobia and agoraphobia. It’s a beautiful, terrible place.
It was unsettling and like all great cinema remained with me for the following days as I tried to reconcile its themes. Not for the squeamish, it also has much to say about mortality and art and sacrifice.
After we saw it Claire and I enjoyed exploring it at Patritti wines.
Pirate Life South Coast Pale Ale
Seeing this on tap I invariably feel a pulse of ale frisson. It occupies that select space I call occasion beers. Fresh and redolent of beachside beers gardens (deliberate plural for who only has one beer?) and gentle swimming bays, it’s an afternoon treat.
Once at Alberton watching Glenelg lose to Port the bar was serving a Pirate Life light beer called 0.9 (based on the alcoholic value). I instead wanted the 2007 grand final commemorative beer, Pirate Life 119 but none was available.
And with an incandescent appearance, the Pale Ale looks painterly in a glass as if Monet had captured it by a French field. Not a regular Friday cup, but one to mark a moment, like a festive luncheon.
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