tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56493309451273501392024-03-13T22:53:41.587-07:00Larry ButtroseWritingsLarry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.comBlogger190125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-49616415742998824032022-03-21T20:16:00.003-07:002022-03-25T20:00:02.643-07:00The Tallageda Vision: The Alternative Facts of the Presidency of Donald J Trump, a fairy tale for adults by E. E. Paxton and Dr Larry Buttrose. Chapter Two.<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEil_L3njgZimw9-aibULkUlAw-UaUNU3Cl90_Mo4PhqKi0s3seB5xDcUX3Ru635E6xsakebj51zOdjX7wRipLeHe-RwHzLzhzy71I8P0XJoyznyegO6CDw5uhvYXLDG54cluhXusSi3XYogo0QcMyC-aQwT7D49r9PXHo-2zCgXNRBsjnV2XFDG4pbwlQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="1000" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEil_L3njgZimw9-aibULkUlAw-UaUNU3Cl90_Mo4PhqKi0s3seB5xDcUX3Ru635E6xsakebj51zOdjX7wRipLeHe-RwHzLzhzy71I8P0XJoyznyegO6CDw5uhvYXLDG54cluhXusSi3XYogo0QcMyC-aQwT7D49r9PXHo-2zCgXNRBsjnV2XFDG4pbwlQ=w588-h376" width="588" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">The Tallageda Vision: The Alternative Facts of the Presidency of Donald J. Trump, by E. E. Paxton with Dr Larry Buttrose, Chapter Two. *All rights withheld except looking at this.*</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 37.33333206176758px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Chapter Two: </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">The Mild West </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;">I have observed that parents tend to love their children. This habitual love comes in a range of flavours. There is Father-Son: brown ale, and Mother-Son: bubbly (domestic). There is Mother-Daughter: coffee of variable quality, and Father-Daughter: a mug of absinthe. For the children of course the flavours are for the most part different. Son-Father: Cola. Son-Mother: chocolate milk. Daughter-Mother: coffee of variable quality. Daughter-Father: Bubble tea with a Sprite chaser.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"> As Mr Trump is a perhaps the world’s most famous teetotaller, it’s fair to say a drink other than absinthe should apply to his relations with his undisputedly favourite child, his daughter Ivanka. And, yes, given the imagination of the man, let’s just say she was the cream in his covfefe, while for her he was a seltzer you always hoped worked, but didn’t.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"> One day, still well before the 2016 election, Ms Ivanka Trump met with her father at a pre-arranged time in Trump Tower. There was nothing unusual in this. By this time she had long been helping him with his speeches, vocabulary, intonations, posture, and presentation including the all-important hair design, and occasionally even laced a shoe for him when it came loose, as he found it difficult to bend over that far, other than for creditors. Ms Trump was kind like that. She was and is the daughter about whom many fathers would be proud to say, ‘I’m proud to say she’s my daughter.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">To the casual eye, Ivanka Trump appears almost irrepressibly perky. She has also been known on occasion to chirrup and chirp. This is not to imply she is in any way “bird-brained”, nor that she has any reason not to be perky, and to chirp and chirrup all she likes. She is after all young, rich, and attractive. This makes her a magazine cover triple-threat, but Ms Trump is even worse – a quadruple. This is because she is the smartest in the family by around the length of Fifth Avenue, which runs from Washington Square all the way up to merge or such with W 143<sup>rd</sup> Street, and so spans the entire known as well as unknown universe. That is how smart she is, and were he a drinking man her father would have felt like he’d just consumed that mug of absinthe every time he saw her, so dizzying was his paternal love and pride. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">I won’t cheapen things by saying Mr Trump also realised she was “totally hot”. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">[You just did. LB] [But she empirically was. And, yes, Dr Buttrose, I do know I threw Aristotle under a bus earlier. But he’s back. For now. So just “suck it up”, as I have been informed they now disgustingly say for “accept it”.] [I thought you were not “au fait” with much vernacular. Have you had your morning covfefe yet? If so I suggest you go and make another one. Triple Irish. LB] <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">But it was not only her father who knew she was “hot”. Her husband Jared Kushner did, and indeed almost any man who beheld her would have felt his pulse rise at least a beat or two, unless he was, as the Queen of England and others reputedly term it, “a friend of Dorothy”. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">I should mention a little more about Ms Ivanka Trump before we hear her speak. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">[No, no - please NO! No more addenda to the text now. We know her already! LB] [Just a paragraph, please, Dr Buttrose, a mere pen-stroke sketch.] [If you insist on this kind of addition and revision here, I shall require a revision of my own - an upward one of my fee. LB] [No problem, Dr Buttrose. But then you knew that.] [Just get ON with it! LB]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">A native of Manhattan, Ivanka Trump shares her Donald-Ivana Trump parentage with Donald Junior (the name may suggest the originally intended heir-apparent), and Eric Trump. She also has two half-siblings, Tiffany, whose mother was her father’s second wife, Marla Maples, and Mr Trump’s youngest child Barron, born of Melania Trump. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">Ms Trump modelled as a teenager while still at school, and followed in her father’s footsteps to his alma mater, Wharton, gaining a bachelor’s degree in Economics. Her success with her clothing, shoe and jewellery brands propelled her while still a gel onto the front covers of magazines such as <i>Town & Country,</i> and <i>Shape</i>. While editors clearly grasped her business acumen, one must also be realistic in stating that her father’s colourful reputation as well as her beauty did not prove a barrier to a high degree of public recognition. [I can see now why you bargained so hard to include this paragraph. It has me on the edge of my rug. LB] Later on her business road got a bit bumpier, but by then she was married to the wealthy Mr Kushner – her father was always there to bail her out too, provided he himself did not need bailing out at the same time – and so happily for her, her bumps were ridden on well-padded suspension. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">She wrote a couple of books on work and business – it is unclear how they sold in comparison to her father’s ghosted “classic” <i>The Art of the Deal,</i> but one can presume he would have sulked if either had – and in recognition of her smarts, and his courageous acceptance his other progeny might not be quite “up with her”, upon his election Mr Trump appointed her as Advisor, although he also appointed her husband Mr Kushner as Senior Advisor. I do not know if these two titles were intended to keep their domestic situation “in proper order”, but as you can see, Mr Trump kept his cabinet close to home - in a corner of the kitchen. [Are we there yet? LB] <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">On the day in question, a few months into 2016, as her father’s run for office was gaining the momentum of an Indiana Jones boulder freed from its terrestrial moorings and careering down a mountainside with terrified people scattering everywhichway in its path, Ms Trump entered a room we now know as possibly but not yet proven to be somewhere near the Trump Tower glans tip. Ms Trump discovered her father fiddling with his phone. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Oh, daddy… Tweeting unsupervised. Again.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">He did not look up. ‘It’s just Uber Eats!’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘No, it’s not Daddy,’ she said, in a voice of infinite patience, if bordering on the lilt staff use for addressing inmates in old people’s homes, after visiting hours and all their relatives have safely left. ‘You’ve seen the polls today and now you’re kneejerk tweeting.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">She put out her hand for the phone, and he reluctantly handed it over. ‘Well,’ she said brightly after reading the almost-completed tweet, ‘lucky you didn’t send that one or we wouldn’t get a single black vote north of the Mason-Dixon. Or south of it either, and they’re used to it.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;">‘Why?’ asked her father, genuinely interested that she could see matters for concern<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;">where Steve Bannon and a phalanx of advisors, posses of lawyers and flunkies, and life-skilled criminal associates, saw none.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">Ms Trump merely rolled her eyes, deleted the intended post and returned the phone.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Pretty dress,’ he said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Thanks. Baby Doll. Nothing special.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘I like the colour.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Green?’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Well, yeah.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Daddy, you don’t need to try to be nice to me, because I know that can wear you out. You’ve never liked anything green. Vegetables, renewable energy, grass. The only green you like is the one you reach in hope of a par.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">He eyed her, trying to work out what to say to this young woman he had somehow fathered, and who was always at least three thoughts ahead of him. He remembered then that Frank Sinatra once said the problem with the world is it’s two drinks behind. He wasn’t sure of why he thought of that then, other than the uncomfortable suspicion he might be lifelong-trapped in a water-treading zone between Ivanka and Frank. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘<span style="color: #050505;">Now </span><span lang="EN-GB">Daddy,’ Ms Trump said at her perkiest. ‘I’ve had an idea.’ </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;">‘<span lang="EN-GB">And what would that be, Daddy’s little darling?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Some young women might have been prompted to retch at the tone he used, but for her it was all part of his not at all weird but nice if clumsily expressed paternal love.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy, you should start drinking.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">She might as well have suggested he try out for the Olympic platform diving team. ‘What?’ he said, and as we all know now for the purposes of this fairy tale, this is his habit when confronted by a question that confounds him, which is most. But unlike Mrs Trump, there was no sea trench nor deep space-like silence with Ms Trump. She didn’t do silences. She was perky.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy, it’s time you became like a normal human being and started drinking alcohol.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Plenty of normal human beings don’t drink alcohol.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘That’s not true. And many who don’t are Muslims,’ she said, already probing his inner defences, having opened with her stunning Queen’s Gambit. He was not aware of this strategy as it was not on Fox. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘What?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Muslims don’t drink at all,’ she said. ‘It’s forbidden.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He “thought” about it for a moment. ‘What, none of them?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Not unless they’re cheating… breaking the rules. Sinning.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah, well.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Jared says not drinking makes them so angry they want to destroy Israel. And while I think they may have other reasons too, such as their dispossession, there could be a grain of truth in that particular loaf.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">This conversation was already a bit hard for Mr Trump to keep track of, but then conversations with his daughter often were. His secret inner name for her was “Lisa”, because even though as far as he knew she did not play the saxophone like the Simpson girl, she could run rings around the rest of the family with her smarts while Bart could only do that on his skateboard. He liked <i>The Simpsons</i>. They made fun of him sometimes, but they made fun of everyone, so it was fair, not rigged like most things he’d ever tried in his life that relied on a quorum of approval from others. He wasn’t unreasonable - it was just a matter of fairness. His losses were always rigged by others and his victories were always his. That was fairness. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He wondered then if he got elected that he might award Matt Groening the Congressional Medal of Honour for services to making him laugh sometimes. The Reader’s Digest and everyone else knew that laughter is the best medicine, Matt Groening must be the most brilliant doctor who ever lived, period, ever. He also wondered if there was some hidden little meaning in his daughter’s use of “loaf”, as in loafing… or was it perhaps to do with real bread, literally with a hidden grain in it? He wondered if you had to eat the whole thing to find it… well, that at least he could do…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘So?’ she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘We all know what it did to my dear brother,’ he said, hoping the card of family tragedy would be the end of it. But nothing was ever the end of it with Ivanka when she didn’t want it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘You’ve never cared about what’s happened to other people before. Why start now? And I think you could find it relaxing.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ve got hookers and golf for that.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘And… politically useful,’ she added, with one of her looks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">She had a habit of doing that too, he knew. Luring you into a trap, and then springing it, so you thought you’d got away, but found your leathery long tail caught in the steel jaws of her persuasion. It took him a moment to think all this, and get out the best reply he could.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘How?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Now she had his full attention at last, she took the opportunity to usher him across the room to the chesterfield by the window with a view of the whole of New York City, or at least whatever quadrant of it was visible from wherever in the building they were. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">[Dr Buttrose, I feel this internal geography of Trump Tower may be becoming a problem.] [No-one cares about description beyond “it was brown” or “it was green”, like Ivanka’s dress. We don’t care about the shade. We see it as we wish. As Hemingway said, the descriptive bits are the ones the reader skips to the next piece of dialogue. LB] [Dr Buttrose, I think that is one of the most detailed notes you have written here.] [Don’t think it’s meaningful and get ahead of yourself. The Reader always just wants to know what’s said next. LB] [But Dr Buttrose, isn’t some description OK?] [Clearly. Obviously. But measured out in Mr Eliot’s coffee spoon. A very small Mr Eliot coffee spoon. LB]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">When they were safely and comfortably seated on the chesterfield, looking out at whatever other towers were next to theirs in the window, Ms Trump resumed in her most persuasive tone. ‘Daddy, I’m not suggesting you start drinking hard liquor, or Budweiser, or anything. I just think with a little tuition and practice, you could learn to drink wine.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Why would I want to drink wine? It stinks.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Wine is a beautiful universe that wine lovers devote their whole lives to exploring. Rich and complex French wines, frivolous and fun-loving Italian and Spanish. And of course there’s champagne, which merciful God gave us to arm and brace ourselves for dinners with your “business associates”. And big, bold Australian reds, and lovely little New Zealand whites...’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"> ‘What’s New Zealand?’ This was before Ms Jacinda Ardern’s election as prime minister in 2017. After that, the common wisdom could be that even Mr Trump might know where New Zealand is. He certainly knew then it existed, with a babe in charge. He even met her, more than once, but not alone in his hotel room. History does not record, at least as yet, whether Mr Trump considered Ms Ardern “totally hot”, just “hot”, or perhaps even not.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘There are Greek wines too. Bulgarian wines. There are Chilean wines. There are South African wines. And, at the bottom of the pile, Daddy, there are Californian wines.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Those weed-smoking hippies can make wine?’ Although ignorant of the process of wine-making, Mr Trump did know some things in life are hard, beyond inheriting a lot of money, if even then it was difficult not to lose it to routine stupidity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"> ‘Yes. The Napa Valley,’ she said. ‘You should watch <i>Sideways</i>.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I like to watch head on.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">She nodded, if not quite as perkily, but rather more sagely, as sages and even non-sages may do, as she comprehended both the truth and the cheap import of this remark. ‘But, if you started to drink Californian wines, some of the voters out there might start to think you’re a bit less, well, you know, sub-human. Somewhere around homo erectus, possibly.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘What did you just call me? A <i>homo... erectus?? </i>I mean <i>erectus</i> is good… but <i>homo</i>??’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy, did you really go to Wharton at all?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-indent: -108pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I could cut your allowance, you know.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-indent: -108pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘No you couldn’t.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Why not?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Mel-a-nia?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Oh, she knows all about the hookers.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But she doesn’t know about the other thing.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘What?? </span>The<span lang="EN-GB"> tax? …land deals? … Payoffs? slush funds? Putin…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘She knows all that stuff too. What do you think she is, dumb?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He considered his response with the greatest care he could. That wasn’t a lot, but she found it interesting watching his rusty cogs grating as he tried.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Then what the fuck doesn’t she know?’ he said and shrugged.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">She smiled at this crude attempt at the blasé brush-off meets intelligence probe. She genuinely worried for him if he were ever put in the witness box facing a real attorney, a judge and jury. He’d either crack or lie that the Pope was secretly the Grand Wizard of the KKK in under a minute.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘You know I mean the <i>one thing</i> she doesn’t know,’ Ms Trump said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘What??’ He tried for querulousness - the thing, not the word, which was not in his vocabulary, even remotely, but in a galaxy far, far away. ‘What the hell you talking about?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘You <i>know</i> what I’m talking about.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He stopped. Said nothing. God he wished sometimes she wasn’t so fucking smart. And then he took the bait like Patrick at a picnic in Bikini Bottom.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But… you don’t know about… <i>that</i>.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘How do you know?’ she teased, for the cheek of it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Because you don’t. How could you?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy. I’m not here to rattle all the skeletons in your closet. I just want to help. Hillary’s in front, right? Way.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Oh. But just wait. I gotta lotta bad stuff on her. Bad.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Of course you do, Daddy. That’s what you have all your attorneys, hackers, creeps and goons for. But listen to me please. Properly.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He stopped for a moment. It was Ivanka. He knew he had to listen. And properly. So he tried. His very hardest. Even harder than his hardest. But it was hard. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘The state of California has 55 electoral college votes. The most of any state, right? It could really swing it for us. And if we… if we did win it… the Democrats would be so stunned they wouldn’t get up off the mat for two terms. So why not try to get it?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Mr Trump snorted inwardly. It was good to know someone as smart as Ivanka could still be as dumb as him or anyone else. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Aw baby, Jesus fucking Christ couldn’t win California if he wasn’t a Democrat.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Mr Reagan won it. Twice. So did old man Mr Bush. And I didn’t see either of them strolling across Marina del Ray.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He had never thought of that. Though he hadn’t because he didn’t know it. He’d check it on Wikipedia later, but if Ivanka said it, fuck, it was probably right. Being right all the time was another thing he found annoying about her. As a rule he didn’t like people who were right, preferring those more like him. So as you can see, annoyance at her intelligence, at the same time as pride in it, were at odds in the Trump brain, and sometimes they came to blows, otherwise known as a headache.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘So…’ he said, still trying to “process” all this, ‘so you think I can win California… I mean, really, really, like, win it, with true, properly counted votes and all, no-one doing any rigging or any shit even… if I just… drink their fuckin’… wine?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"> ‘I know it sounds crazy, Daddy,’ she chirruped. ‘Almost like something you’d dream up. But you’d like wine if you got used to it. You really would. And with all the state dinners there’s a tiny tiny tiny chance you may have ahead of you, people might fantasise you have a smidge of sophistication if you drink wine at the table, instead of Diet Coke. So drinking for you is a win-win.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He hadn’t thought about those state fucking dinners. The prospect terrified the shit out of him, almost literally. He wouldn’t be able to eat a burger out of his hand. People ate with knives and forks and shit. He might even have to eat with the Queen of like, Engaland…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘So you <i>really</i> think Californians could be dumb enough to vote for me if I just did something like that… just drink their wine.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes, Daddy. It’s why I’m saying it. You see, Californians love people who are <i>loose</i>.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Well, he thought, here at last was something he could “work with”.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Loose? I’m loose. Already I’m loose. I’m the loosest guy on the block.’ <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I know that, Daddy. And they’d <i>get</i> that, they’d <i>intuit</i> it, if you got to know them, and vice versa. They’re all crystal chakras out there, and they’d sense with their cosmic feelers that there’s this <i>loose</i> guy inside that suit somewhere, just busting to get out. Maybe not exactly <i>their</i> kind of loose… but, at least a bit their kind of loose. You know, they love hot tub parties… <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Well that’s my kind of party.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He knew those, yeah. Putin had them. Lots of them… Vlad sure knew how to fuckin’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB">hot-tub party…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I know that, Daddy. And they’d intuit that. But to be really <i>loose </i>means you’re<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB">willing to spend time, and hang with friends.’<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"> His blood ran cold. <i>Oh.</i> <i>God.</i> So she really <i>did</i> <i>know</i>. ‘Please, please, whatever you do, <i>please</i> don’t tell Melania.’ The brutality of her silence alone would kill him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Ms Trump tittered. ‘Don’t be silly, Daddy. Not the <i>rope</i> kind of hang. I mean <i>hang</i>, you know, <i>out</i>, with friends. Drink a little wine, maybe smoke a little weed… soft music coming out through the open doors, the splash of the pool as people skinny-dip… the sun and the warm desert wind on your bare skin… kicking back… just totally chilling out…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">The tenor of all this raised immediate suspicions in the man who could read human nature like he did on <i>Celebrity Apprentice</i>… <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">[Dr Buttrose, I have never watched this programme. But I thought I should insert at least one reference to it, as so many people appear for some reason or other to have watched it. Do you know it?] [Only by its low repute. Move on. LB] <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘You almost sound like… you’ve actually gone there. Into enemy territory,’ Mr Trump said, a bit quietly. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy,’ she said, happily ignoring his intonation. ‘You can get a natural tan there. For free. And Californians aren’t all as bad as they look. There’s some great Republicans out there too. Wonderful mega-churches, and televangelists, and not all of them are pedos (paedos) either.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">[Dr Buttrose, I have decided that where possible – and whenever I deem it necessary, or I remember, for that matter – that I shall provide a round-bracketed Standard British English version of American English words, both in the interest of easy comprehension for the widest possible spectrum of readers, and in the cause of simple decency. Is that all right, Dr Buttrose?] [Round-bracket, sparingly, if you must, but you will never be able to convey here the gross indecency of the American pronunciation of “aluminium”, nor their common mangling of “nuclear”, as the most obvious examples of their mistreatment of the language. LB] [Noted, Dr Buttrose. I’m glad we are “eye-to-eye” on that one.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ve heard of these churches,’ Mr Trump replied, with apparent interest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes, you’ve seen them on television. When you can’t find Fox.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘What else have they got out there? Beside dumb Tesla? What kind of pussy car is that? It’s not a real American car, made by real American workers.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes it is, Daddy. But all cars are made by robots now anyway.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah? Well who’s making our real American robots then?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘China.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘What? So, what do they actually make out there?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Nearly all of our porn, for one thing. California is the centre of the global porn universe. Our economy would be ruined if it wasn’t for our GDP of porn. Those boys and girls are literally humping their asses off for the good of this great nation.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah? Well, of course I love our porn… industry. What red-blooded American doesn’t? But why don’t my staff tell me this stuff? Instead of always going on about stupid… numbers.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy, that’s because they’re poor <i>communicators</i>. But look at you. You’re a great communicator. You’re like Mr Reagan, only with a chest. There’s nothing you can’t communicate. All you need is a few simple, basic ideas, and you’ll be a great president.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But… ideas… are the hard part,’ he confessed, because if there was one person he could confide all his failings and weaknesses and flaws and dark matters to, it was his daughter. ‘I mean, I got the Wall. I got that and I’m gonna go big on that. Totally bigly. Oh, and getting jobs back for all those retards out in the Rust-Belt… and…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Ms Trump allowed her father to subside. She knew that when it came to policy, he would never go on for very long unaided, unless he was speaking at one of his rallies. But those events she knew were what the English call “all piss and wind”, and not to be taken seriously except by the deeply underprivileged, the intellectually-challenged, and those who were somehow congenitally doomed to being what was cruelly termed “trailer trash”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">So, she waited. Finally his lips did not move at all, and no further words issued from them because, she knew, when it came to the ideas tank, as ever he was “running on empty”. When nothing more issued, not even an “em” or an “uh”, she resumed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy, you do know though, don’t you, that both of those are dumb ideas. You do know that. Or at least I hope you do. Because they are. Jobs? The Chinese are competing us off the map. It’s not just the robots they make. They make everything. Other technology, consumer goods, everything. And they’re so big into AI, which our Defense Department still seems to think is a sub-branch of Alcoholics Anonymous. And no jobs will ever return to the Rust Belt, Daddy. That’s why it’s rusting. It’s uneconomic. Those jobs will only ever return if there’s a profit incentive derived from surplus value of sale price over unit production cost to attract investment.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Mr Trump stared at her. What the fuck was she speaking? Swahili? He’d often wondered about Swahili. Who were the Swaheels anyway, and where the fuck were…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘We’ll never make anything now but tech, arms and porn. Some pot and wine. And a few other bits and pieces. As for your Wall… we <i>need</i> all those people coming up here to do all the stuff we won’t. Who’ll garden, pick up our trash and raise our kids? And if we had to bring in proper guest workers from overseas, the wages would bankrupt us. These people work for nothing, Daddy! Nothing! <i>Nada. Zero. Zilch. </i>Two, three bucks an hour if they’re lucky. We don’t even have to give them basic healthcare. Or anything. They work for nothing and get nothing and cost us nothing. What more could we ask? If you stop them coming here, you’ll destroy us all.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Her mind was totally amazing. Where had all this braininess come from? Some days it made Mr Trump wonder whether Ivana had fucked Einstein… When did he die? ‘But… my base… you know, they think they’re all rapists, drug traffickers and murderers coming up…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Of course they do. Because you’ve told them that, forever, and… with respect…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Uh-oh.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘They believe you because lots of them are white supremacists like your dumb buddies on the golf course.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Jesus fuck, Mr Trump thought. She really truly totally had his, like, number. His head swam a bit. If a kid like her had a mind like that - how many more of her were there out there who would think shit like that about him? Millions. Tens of millions. All of them educated to within an inch of their lives, and able to read him like a fuckin’ cuckoo clock… they knew so fucking much…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He stopped… and experienced a flash of revelation then. <i>The apple</i>… he thought… it all came back… to the fuckin’ apple. God… was right. Even if He did or did not exist, or was somewhere in between, He was right. The apple of knowledge was…. totally dangerous. And so many people had eaten of it… the apple Apple now…it was scary… he needed to think more on it…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Mr Trump looked at his daughter square in the face, or as squarely as he could, as her face wasn’t square.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘What?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">She smiled in that way that chilled him to gazpacho. Like he was already in a goddam concentration nursing home camp, and she was giving him her two-minute audience in words of one syllable for his rotting brain, before running off back to Jared, Jared, fukin’ Jared… and the kids, the kids… and leaving him to be force-fed pumpkin and pea shit mash, mixed up and lukewarm and watery as his old eyes… <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy, I know you’re trying to think of a solution to this.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘To what?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Your Wall, Daddy. So I’ll give you the solution.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Huh?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s actually easy. You just… <i>say… </i>you’ll build the wall… that’s fine… you’ll keep your imbecile base happy… and<i>, oh, oh</i>… oh, and even better… how about this? How about you also say… <i>say…</i> you’ll get Mexico... to <i>PAY </i>for it! <i>Hah!!</i> And then… then if by the remotest chance you do get elected, you can’t build it because Mexicans are being mean, and won’t pay up! And you can always rely on Congress to block it anyway. They’re good at that. The Democrats will help you out, don’t worry.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He sat there sitting fuddled as fuck. Fuck it all, she was making sense! As usual! ‘But… my staff… all think… they’re tremendous ideas…’ he said, almost timidly, with a tiny inward cower.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘We have already discussed this, Daddy. You know and I know your staff all have the mental calibre of mobster goons who can’t get jobs as $5000 hit men. And I bet they all hate even the mention of California, right?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Well…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy, if it wasn’t for California, this country would be right in the bidet. You do know, don’t you, that Silicone Valley is not where your hookers go to get their boob jobs. Apple, Google, Facebook, and the rest of the tech gang, they’re all hanging out there, and they all make so much money they could buy France outright. And England with the spare change.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Shit…</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> he thought... Or perhaps it was more like a Slim Pickens’, <i>well,</i> <i>shee-itt</i>… and he felt almost faint, and sprawled back on the chesterfield, spread his legs and let out his belt a notch or two. He looked out a steadying moment at the view of the concrete city in the window. It was a terrific concrete city, yes, phenomenal, but to his eye now, strangely all the colour seemed to have faded from it, like some old tapestry some “guide” shows you on the wall of a museum, and she tells you how ancient and important and fucking intricate it is, and you’re standing there thinking “this piece of dumb shit?”, and the woman keeps yacking on and on about it and doesn’t even have a good pair of tits. But besides the tits, something else was knocking together there in his back-brain now, and that was what had suddenly drained his beloved home city of the colour it had only ever had in his imagination anyway. After all, even Mr Trump knew that concrete comes in only fifty shades of grey. But France… that was… <i>Paree</i>… It took him a moment to speak.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Buy… France? Really? Is it that, like, cheap? Lotta beautiful women there… in Paris. A lot. Very beautiful. I’ve seen them. Paris is crawling with them, models, in all that phenomenal <i>coo-toor</i> they do over there. France. So, yeah. I’d like to buy France. I’m sure Melania would like to have that one too. Well, at least Paris. I mean the rest is just French, right?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m sure she would. Fashion shows. Shoe stores. And yes Daddy, there are lots of beautiful women in France. As there are everywhere in the world.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">[Dr Buttrose, I have not communicated with you in some pages. Just checking, is everything all right? Am I going OK?] [Just keep going. And whatever you do, do not feel the need to describe the chesterfield, or anything else in the room. The human mind fills this in.. Just keep the story going. We’re going to California in our minds now. That’s where the Reader wants to go. Because everyone does, admit it or not. LB].<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘And Daddy, I may have been speaking a bit figuratively in regard to the acquisition of a leading EU member state by our tech titans, but you get my general point. There’s a wealth transfer going on that’s unprecedented in human history… from governments and the people to tech. They’re impossibly rich. Governments are prostituting themselves to them with no taxes and are in hock up to their eyeballs. And China hasn’t even unleashed its top secret virus on the world yet that will kill millions. And our pharma companies will soon be making kinds of wealth from it that’s utterly obscene, even for them.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Ms Trump’s allusion to insider knowledge about a deadly virus that would ravage the world breezed by him like a draft up his shorts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘So… so… we really… can’t buy France?? Not even our government can, I mean?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Not unless it’s for sale - and if the government is privatised to a tech startup.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But we could do that… couldn’t we? I mean, you know, to get… well…. Paris…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Most of the good real estate in that landscape is already taken anyway.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But why did you tell me we could if we can’t! That’s not nice. Even for a daughter. And what was that stuff about prostituting?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy I just was trying to put it in terms you might understand. Involving women using their bodies to earn large sums of money. That is what the world’s governments are doing with the tech companies. But in their case, selling themselves for a pittance they don’t even get.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Not even fifty bucks on the dresser?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Zilch.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He sat back, reached across without looking, and single-handedly cracked a Diet Coke from the eternal silver ice bucket at his elbow. He didn’t offer anything to Ivanka, but knew she never wanted it. Not even Diet Coke. That was how she always stayed so phenomenally thin. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Has Daddy ever told you how beautiful you are?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Only about a hundred times a day.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘You’re even more beautiful than all those French babes put together, darling.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-indent: -108pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s almost all right that you call me darling still. But still feels a bit creepy…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-indent: -108pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But doesn’t every regular dad still see his grown-up daughter in just a diaper?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-indent: -108pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘…but then I know you.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-indent: -108pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He “thought” about this but forgot what he was going to say because he started<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"> thinking about something else. Sometimes it was hard for Mr Trump’s brain to keep up with itself, much less other brains. Then he remembered something easy he could say.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘So… you you really think I could win California?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-indent: -108pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes Daddy! You could!’ she chirruped, delighted to have him back “on message”. ‘If <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB">you changed your policies, your staff, got fit, ate properly, learned about wine, changed your circle of huckster friends, read books, and somehow started to think, yes, I think you really, really could.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘How come you ended up so smart? I don’t get it. Where did it come from?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘You always ask me that again and again and I always say the same thing: Mommy. Listen… why don’t we do a little trip to California? Just the two of us. A daddy-daughter thing. Melania wouldn’t want to go near the place anyway. There’s so many of her there she’d find it offensive. And, we’ll go to the Getty Museum… and Disneyland, of course…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But isn’t that just the old one of Disney World?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ll choose you the best rides. And then we head up to San Francisco, and I’ll show you <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB">the Castro district.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"> His eyes narrowed, and that was something frightening to behold, as the tanning goggle whites merged together into an infinity symbol. And infinity on the face of Mr Trump was something few could face sober.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘<i>Castro?</i> He’s got a whole, like, district? In an <i>American</i> city??’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s not full of Cuban revolutionaries, Daddy,’ she tittered. ‘It’s the gay district. Or one of them. Most of San Francisco is kind of the gay district now. It’s a very gay city.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘<i>Gay!</i><i>’</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes, Daddy,’ she spoon-fed him. ‘They’re a huge part of the voting population in California. And I’m sure if they could see a gentler, more sensitive, even rational side to you, they could, you now, switch preferences. In a manner of speaking. Or, if they looked at you squarely, some of them might literally turn.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘From Democrat to Republican?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘In a manner of speaking, as I say, yes.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Well… just as long as I don’t have to be on the back of a truck in some rainbow fuckin’ parade…’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘It’ll be a very nice truck. A top of the range Mercedes. With lots of spangly drag queens pole-dancing to <i>The Star Spangled Banner</i>.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Shit, did he really have to ride on the back of some truck through the streets of gay San Fran-fuckin’-cisco to get elected? What kind of country was this now? What had become of… he reached for the right word… but it wasn’t there. It hadn’t been there in the first place. That was because it had never existed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But I want the Marine Band playing it.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Sure, and they’ll love it and fit in fine. People will go mad to see them. Gays love Marines. They’re very patriotic. And Marines love gays. Because they have similar haircuts. Everyone is very accepting of difference and diversity and respect for the other person.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Shit fuck Jesus, he thought… gay fucking Marines…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Daddy, the Marines are changing quickly. Have you heard of Chelsea Manning?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"> ‘The Clinton kid got hitched to someone?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"> ‘Chelsea <i>Clinton</i> married years ago. Chelsea <i>Manning</i> was a Marine named Bradley Manning who sent state secrets to Julian Assange at Wikileaks. About our dirty war stuff. And Bradley later gender-transitioned to Chelsea.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"> ‘Yeah, well, Assange… talking about gender fuckin’ transition…. I want his balls on toast. Bad.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"> ‘Daddy, to many people he’s a hero of free speech. You could come out in support of him, and people from the right and the left would love you for it.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Where the fuck is he anyway and how come we can’t get him?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘He’s still holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Where he’s been for years while we try to work out how to get kidnap or murder him or abuse the British legal system and get him here and lock him up forever. But he’s not a bad man, Daddy.’ She paused, and he thought, fuck, fuck, fuck, she <i>believes</i> this shit… ‘He hasn’t done anything wrong at all, except reveal some truths we should all face.’ And then she looked at him. ‘And unlike so many other people walking around, he’s committed no crime.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He shrugged it. ‘Where next?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Oh, all right… well, and then we go on to Silicone Valley and tour all the big places. Meet Elon.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He sat bolt upright, spilling a little of his Diet Coke in the process but not noticing. A splash or two fell on Ms Trump, too. She ignored it. She always had her clothes cleaned immediately after seeing him. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Meet… like… <i>Elon Musk?</i> <i>Really?’</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I thought you hated Tesla.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I do… but I mean… Elon… you know… he’s so like, <i>cool!</i>’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ll text him. And we’ll visit One Infinite Loop, and you can meet Tim Cook.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He eyed her with suspicion on that one. ‘You mean the… like… Apple… guy?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘The CEO, yes, why?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He thought about telling her about his concerns about… the apple… but thought the better of it for now. ‘And what’s this “Infinite Loop”? I thought only women had those.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s the Apple HQ, Daddy. Totally amazing. It’s a loop. Like a giant hole.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Buildings should not be <i>holes</i>. Buildings should be great big huge tall <i>towers</i>. Tremendously tall thrusting towers.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes of course you would say that, Daddy. But when we’re down there, inside the Loop, you can just think of yourself as Trump Tower inside it. I know it won’t be hard.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He did not appreciate her “hard” wording in that. And he knew that not even his gorgeous, sweet-talking daughter could ever lure him into that den of evil…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘And then… we finish up in the Napa Valley!’ she grinned. ‘And you toast California and all its wonderful people… <i>With your first ever glass of wine!!</i> The cameras will lap it up! And the American people will love you for your selfless sacrifice for the greater good. Even better than for your fine military service you never served.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Those bone spurs.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘How are they these days?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m holding up.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘And Daddy, don’t worry,’ and at this point she laughed with a kind of childlike glee that might have melted the heart of even the most narcissistic, conceited and self-centred of fathers, ‘I’ve already thought of the perfect wine for you to drink. A Napa specialty. A lovely chilled Pinot Noir. Think, Daddy! Social media will go nuts for this! Californians will go wild! A gay-cool, tech-savvy, Disney-riding hipster who loves a Pinot and knows how to kick back and chill out, and is totally, like, <i>loose</i>.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">He “thought” about it a moment. Even that time span was hard enough. ‘I want you in my cabinet.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-indent: -108pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Of course, Daddy. But how about… as your…’ and here she gave him her sweetest<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB">Daddy’s Little Girl smile, ‘well… as your running mate?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah I thought about that… for about, like, five minutes. But you can’t be. I know McCain had Potty Palin… but as well as being a woman and young, two strikes, you’re also a Jew, because you married Jared. And my people would never vote for someone saddled with being that as well as a woman and young.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘But… Daddy…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"> And here now was his chance to play big bad daddy with her, and after all the shit he’d eaten from her… well… the pea and pumpkin mash… he grabbed it with his biggest strongest man-voice of all. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Jared<i>.</i> Jared. What kinda name’s <i>Jared</i> anyhow? Sounds like some no class realtor from Queens. No, I’ve got the perfect old white dude all picked out. But don’t worry, you’ll be president in 2024. So I can keep telling you what to do.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes, Daddy,’ she said after a momentary pause. ‘Of course.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘So… what does this… <i>peen-oh</i>… shit taste like, anyway?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘You’ll like this. It’s the best part.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Come on then.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">‘Diet Coke.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-indent: -72pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB">[Dr Buttrose, I believe you “let me have my head” in that chapter.] [I did. Keep going. LB] [Dr Buttrose, I suspect the next chapter may be rather longer.] [Don’t worry. I’ll cut it. LB]. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-32652059428036355902022-03-20T23:38:00.001-07:002022-03-25T20:00:28.438-07:00The Little Book of Insults Chapter 1<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqvlun1OvgYCKYz8ZsjKYv-QBLXDJf1ADufhDqHBG8-NhHNDdhHhX4rX43gev51Bpb213REB4-WyT435-mSkuUTj5DM-20lMlBoZjVbMTFIFl7qnRe6Wz8Z18RuD60R9El7DN4W87AmchmnI2Vbu6bNJs4I_KSvpqEakdkBBRJF94cRZUTzU2Jphgg8g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="474" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqvlun1OvgYCKYz8ZsjKYv-QBLXDJf1ADufhDqHBG8-NhHNDdhHhX4rX43gev51Bpb213REB4-WyT435-mSkuUTj5DM-20lMlBoZjVbMTFIFl7qnRe6Wz8Z18RuD60R9El7DN4W87AmchmnI2Vbu6bNJs4I_KSvpqEakdkBBRJF94cRZUTzU2Jphgg8g" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 72pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"> <span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;">THE LITTLE BOOK OF INSULTS <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 72pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span>A fairy tale for adults by E. E. Paxton<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 72pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"> with Dr Larry Buttrose<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 72pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 144pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"> FOREWORD<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;">This fairy tale for adults is intended to follow my first (also with Dr Larry Buttrose), <i>The *Tallageda Vision: The Alternative Facts of the Presidency of Donald J. Trump. </i>The introduction and appendix in that book describe our “process” and “working relationship”, and contractual arrangements, for anyone who might happen to be interested in such obscure, technical matters. Should any readers have come to this book without reading that first one, I refer them to my brief Afterword in this volume, which provides a curt summary of these matters. It will also prove useful if that first one proves to be tragically unpublishable for any number of good reasons.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;">As with the first book, we anticipated the publisher would insist for some reason known only to them that the annoying editorial exchanges between Dr Buttrose and me on the manuscript in progress be included. I assure the Reader that in this volume these are mercifully fewer and briefer, which I can only put down to a gnawing suspicion Dr Buttrose believes I may be learning how to write, as you will see from our final exchange. (Please do be patient, and read it when you get to it, not now, as that would be cheating, or something.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;">E.E. Paxton<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;">(All other details withheld)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> *Not a typographical error for Talladega.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;"> PART ONE<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 48px;"> An Absence of Absinthe<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 108pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 180pt; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 180pt; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 180pt; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 180pt; text-align: start;"> CHAPTER ONE<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;">ONCE upon a time, there was a far-off magical land called “Europe.” But despite what one might suspect of a fairy tale, Europe turns out to be not entirely imaginary. As pioneering airfarer accounts truly attested, it was and is a real place. Nor is it a “fairytale kingdom”. Travellers described it as more of an “entity” composed of smaller ones, drawn together in some of kind of mystical union. The set-up is perhaps more complicated than our purposes require here, so let us simply call Europe a “realm”. I find that a nice, rounded five letter word with a satisfying “lm” ending, and I hope you concur, and perhaps derive as much weird pleasure from it as I do.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> Over time, our knowledge of Europe grew. Some hardy souls even began journeying there. More eventually made the arduous trip, and a picture emerged. Almost all concurred that Europe is nice: in fact, it is the kind of place people who don’t live there hope they’ll go when they die. That’s how nice it is. Those journeying there nowadays, if still enduring the most terrible privations of space and appalling food en route – although the rum ration is always generous – mostly undergo things there called “holidays”, or as some insist on quasi-scatologically terming them, “vacations”. These can be adventurous, pleasurable, even educative “experiences”, but for many they can also prove as near-death as one can go without actually “passing”. [No! Not even parenthesised, in jest, ever, EEP! LB] [Sorry, Dr Buttrose. I must have been watching television.] These return exhausted, fleeced of their savings, and bearing crude and valueless trinkets they were assured would impress their friends, who snigger behind their backs. Despite that, we still know in our hearts that Europe is very nice, and if there is any fault to be found, it must be in us, and our own lack of a proper appreciation of all the fine things it has. After all, it is we who bought the trinkets, as surely as it is the Chinese who made them. For some other people, visiting Europe can also be “transformative”, leading to a “deeper understanding” of “one’s self”, and so on. And while this fairy tale might not be about that kind of thing at all, it sounds pleasant, and mild as one of those soaps made from goat milk. I think it is always nice to find pleasant, harmless things in life, as they don’t require “trigger warnings” and 1800 telephone numbers. “Transformation” and a “deeper understanding of self” are rarities in not requiring those, and so are the goat milk soap of human experience.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> As you might have suspected by now, dear Reader, our fairy tale takes place in this Europe, although it begins not with a princess, as one might consider tradition, but a contessa. This term is used to denote a countess of Italian origin, and such is our heroine, the Contessa Isabella Gattonero de’ Medici. Now I know those of you who bother to search such things on Wikipedia will see that the line of the “big” Medicis of Florence has long died out, and the Medicis who are left are not of the banking dynasty, but dentists, accountants, nurses, clerks, sex workers, cleaners, tattooists, garbage collectors, and even politicians and journalists. But the Contessa is from a forgotten sub-twig of that great, near-extinct dynasty, and so continues the line into our times. But she is the very last, and were she to die “without issue” (as the Baron will surely mention in a subsequent chapter), that would be the end of the line for the genes of Giovanni, Cosimo and Lorenzo the Magnificent. So as you can imagine, a certain reproductive imperative may have been seen by others as resting upon her shoulders, even though she had not yet had any children. Perhaps the Contessa didn’t care a fig if the line died out: we do not know at this point. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> We find her aboard a tram, rumbling through the streets of Brussels, the capital of Europe. She is dressed for a ball, and as with all her wardrobe, the style dates from the 18<sup>th</sup> Century. The reason for this quirk, shared by others we shall meet from the decadent European aristocracy, will become apparent as we proceed. Being our Heroine/Princess Trope, she is beautiful, in her case to a psychologically disruptive degree, so that women, men and children alike often have to avert their eyes for fear of sensory overload and possible psychotic reaction. Her hair is “coal black”, naturally, in both senses of the word, her lips are “ruby red” and eyes “flashing green”, and so on. And as you can imagine would be the case in a fairy tale in the rubric of the ruling paradigm, her skin is so translucently pale that were one to be so privileged as to see her unclad, one would see her kidneys and liver at their work, and unblemished as the soul of a nun who has not yielded herself to the predations of a pious priest or a “fallen” sister, but for the alluring beauty spot to the right of the left lip, or left of the right lip if you were looking at it, I think. Her corporeal profile is the socially-repressive idealised female form, but as this is a fairy tale for adults we may hazard to permit ourselves just this much more: full busted, narrow waisted, with a trim behind. Her legs are elongated, and slipped into heels of modest elevation, as she already has an adequacy of same, and would never be seen in the crass vulgarity of high heels at any rate. Her ankle-length “midnight blue” silk gown is adorned with strings of pearls and gilt-encrusted with gems and so on which passers-by and other riff-raff may assume to be of the costume variety, and for reasons that will also presently become apparent, it is only because she inherited this sublime garment and others in her wardrobe that she can afford to wear such prized and sought-after mineral deposits upon her person. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> She is seated beside a “pixie-cut”, bespectacled woman of mature years in a grey business suit who is busy texting as she is late for a hastily-convened after-hours meeting concerning delays in her company’s importation from Thailand of PVC joints used in domestic electrical ducting. A life such as hers, dear Reader, is one to which so many of you thoughtlessly consign yourselves, but enough of my feeding the narcissistic needs by which some of you may be challenged, and we shall leave the businesswoman to her personal Purgatorio. Two wattle-throated gentlemen of years more mature again sit behind them, in polyester “leisure suits” of vivid, outlandish colours, discussing recent cruise trips in loud voices one naturally screens out. Across the aisle two young male Goths sit, heavily made up, presumably going out to a “rave”, or upon some similarly arcane mission, and their conversation was muttered, and thus audible.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> ‘Shit. I forgot my eyeliner.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> ‘Norbert, you’ve got heaps on already.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> ‘Can I have some of yours if I need a touch-up?’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> ‘No.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> Although we hear this exchange, the Contessa did not – and please note that here we make the momentous leap, from the present to the past tense, so if you are easily upset by abrupt change, please look away here or seek counselling, and if in doubt at all, do check your blood pressure - as she was peering out the window at the sights of Brussels, a city that never ceased to surprise her by having them. She liked architecture. It was reassuringly solid, cool on a warm day, but also affording reliable shelter from winter snow and wind and other weather difficulties during the less considerate months. Parks were kind amenities too. But while the Contessa’s inner life might be occupied with the “built environment” and/or “green spaces” in that moment, her favourite thing to think about, read and recite to herself, was poetry. She loved it dearly, and wondered whether one day she might fancifully choose to waste the rest of her life with a poet. This passion was inconvenient for her many suitors, who were forced to engage private tutors to learn at least enough about it to conduct a conversation with her. This did tend to make for a less than easy flow of chat, and she often found herself inadvertently working out who had tutored them, from their faked poetic preferences from Donne and Pope to Plath and Ginsberg. And oh how they struggled with the Sonnets, with Dickenson and e e cummings, with <i>Ozymandias</i>, the politics of Pound, <i>Four Quartets</i> and the death of Hart Crane! There was so much for the poor young fellows to learn! It was poetic trial by torture. But they undertook it because they found her mind-alteringly alluring, enchanting etc - but if one can forgive here a contraction to “lure”, they still could not “hook” her, much less “reel her in”. Despite personal “challenges” that will become apparent in this fairy tale, she remained a “free agent”, akin in a way to a “free radical”, something seen as dangerous in its own manner, and thought by unexamined, unreconstructed types as in need of “taming”. [Enough with the parentheses. It taxes the eyes. LB] [Sorry, Dr Buttrose. But it’s hard being correct.] [Don’t try. Drink more. LB] <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">Yet despite the best efforts of an army of suitors and their sorry tutors, the Contessa remained solo, much to their brow-knitted, clenched chagrin. That is not to say she had never married. She had done so thrice. But now she considered these more “flirtations” of her racy twenties, and comfortably installed in her thirties now, she was happily and determinedly single. Or at least, so she thought. The heart, as we know, is always hungry. [Hungry Heart? LB] [What, Dr Buttrose?] [Nevermind. LB] [Oh. Nirvana. I do know them, Dr Buttrose.] [Take me there, Sweet Jesus. Now. LB]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> At last the tram trundled to a halt near an imposing, potentially baroque structure lit up for the Ball, the Royal Palace. Alighting light of foot and long on elegance, she joined others who were converging upon the fairy-lit entrance like killer wasps on a bee hive. Such was her renown she did not even need to show her curlicued invitation, but was waved through by the otherwise horribly officious posse of Officials, who from experience shielded their eyes. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> She entered a Ballroom of such beauty as to delight the eye even of the most cynical person. [I thought of you when I wrote this, Dr Buttrose.] [Always nice to be recognised. LB]. We don’t need to go on here about the mountains of caviar and champagne, the ice sculptural marvels created by a Japanese wunderkind, the Dutch masters lining the walls like portraits of Managing Directors of yore, the extravagant dresses of the ladies and the gay dinner jackets of the gentlemen and so on, that greeted her gaze. I am sure you can imagine it perfectly well, and if in any doubt I refer you to the Ball scene in <i>Cinderella</i>. [Ah. Good move. LB] [Thank you Dr Buttrose.] [Don’t rest on your laurels, you’ll crush them. LB] All eyes naturally turned to her, and lingered there as long as humanly possible. But her eye fell upon the Archduke Frederick Savoy-Truffle, Ruler of the Realm, as he sipped champagne at the room’s epicentre in the company of one of his less simpering councillors. The Archduke was wise, very wise, and white-haired, very white-haired, both beneath his very white-haired wig. He was thin and angular, but oddly “cute” as well, and although aristocratically lofty, stooped democratically. He looked most splendid in his Archducal get-up, the vivid Vyes Klein Blue frock-coat and matching cape, both resplendent with the gold stars of Europe circling their wagons upon it, and in all his frills and buttons and bows and stockings and leggings and buckles and so forth, such as befitted an 18<sup>th</sup> Century man of his rank. You could call him a man for all seasons, but particularly autumn, mid-late, yellowing but not quite shedding. He was the one man the Contessa truly loved, if not like that. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">He kissed her dainty hand with a moist flourish. ‘My dear Contessa.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘My dearest Archduke.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘But did no-one greet you with champagne?’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Let’s not speak of the times, Freddy.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">“The times” were things people of their class and others too spoke of a good deal, and endured rather than enjoyed. The endless conflicts in the east made things even harder, so that a glass of champagne was neither there nor here now. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">[You are teasing the reader to read on. You don’t need to do this. Just write well and truly. LB] [How Earnest, Dr Buttrose.] [You should perhaps read him some time. LB] [Is he as good as Lovecraft, Dr Buttrose? He was my education for my last book.] [<i>Our </i>last book, EEP. And yes. Read him.] [Some of my fellows at my Wednesday fortnightly cheese, wine and book group swear by him, but others swear about him, Dr Buttrose.] [Then you have no choice but to read him and form your own abusive opinion. LB]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">At this moment a suave, handsome, well groomed, impeccably tailored, tall, tanned-cheeked, trim, sexually attractive young man bulging with cocky self confidence but perhaps not radiating such intensely deep intelligence, entered the room, and as with the entrance of the Contessa, almost all eyes fell upon him, this “almost” not including hers. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Ah,’ said the Archduke. ‘The Baron.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">The man we now know as the Baron swept two glasses of champagne from a passing tray and strode toward the Archduke and Contessa. He bowed, well but not obsequiously, and presented the Contessa with one of the glasses. She nodded thanks, with a smile best described as “nano”, although whether even any instrument could have detected and confirmed that remains moot.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Do I take it you are already acquainted with the Contessa Isabella Gattonero de’ Medici?’ the Archduke said. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Tragically not, Freddy. I merely saw a damsel in distress devoid of Dom.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Contessa, may I introduce the Baron Fritz von Schnauzer.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; text-align: start;">As per protocol, she once more extended her dainty hand, and he enfolded it in his <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;">meaty mitt and looked into her eyes like a puppy in awe of a bone. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> ‘Contessa,’ he whispered, in a deeply hoarse, actorly whisper, then with a curlicue of pomp and circumstance pivoted to the Archduke. ‘And my apologies for my unfashionably late arrival, Freddy. My driver was on a crib break, delivering for Amazon.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘My staff are all off screwing on something they all call “Tinder”. I prefer a good old-fashioned bed. And I do wish they’d fuck on their own time. Like we did in my day.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘I’m told you went well into overtime, Freddy,’ the Contessa said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘And... ah... if only I could spend just one hour more of it with you now, my dear.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘My dearest Archduke, I take that as a perfectly indigestible condiment.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">The Baron meanwhile nakedly Tom Jones-eyed the Contessa, with both Toms. ‘Your repute as a wildly ravishing beauty criminally devalues you, Contessa.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Oh? And there I was, thinking all that nonsense was well and truly…’ and here she glanced around at her bottom, ‘behind me.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘On the matter of behind, yours may I say is sublime to the eye,’ the Baron continued. ‘Firm, I’m sure, yet silky to the touch as a Moroccan apricot.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">She reached out and gave his behind a squeeze. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Yours seems in need of six solid months of squash Baron. But if I drink enough champagne and the time inexplicably comes, do try to think of my cunt as a rent boy’s arsehole, and you should be fine.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">The Baron chuckled unruffled basso profundo indulgence at this. ‘Mere society gossip and tittle-tattle. The stock in trade of social capitalists with no options.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Mm. They say things about me too,’ the Contessa said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘I’ll have them pistol-whipped. What do they say?’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘That I’m poor. Which though, is true.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Poor? How can you be poor?’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Her daddy was a gamblin’ man,’ the Archduke said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">The Baron nodded sagely as a sage at this. Being a man of the tables himself - and as we know, what else do the brainless rich do but gamble and race cars and horses and loaf about on large yachts - he had seen enough of his fellows leaving the casino shirtless at dawn, unable even to afford the services of a sex worker to balm their wounds, to understand and sympathise with this. But nonetheless, it still challenged his reason that a woman of such troubling beauty could somehow be impoverished, when there were so many paths to wealth for her, and even more so being titled. It also suggested a door perhaps a little ajar to him. That gave him cause for optimism about tossing his hat into the proverbial ring, as had the Contessa’s remark about where an over-sufficiency of wine might lead, if couched in rather less than delicate terms.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start;"> ‘I’m so poor I don’t even have the pox,’ the Contessa said. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Fortunately I have more than enough to go around,’ the Archduke said. ‘Noblesse oblige.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Somehow I’ve missed out on the pox too,’ said the Baron. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Your wife or favoured concubine must be pleased about that,’ she said. ‘At least.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">The Baron’s face contorted with something he hoped would read as emotional hurt. ‘My dear wife is departed.’ <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Oh, dear,’ murmured the Contessa. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">‘Skiing incident,’ the Baron said. ‘Well, apres-ski. Impaled on a Russian. Bare.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0cm; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">The Contessa regarded him and nodded, as sagely as a sage.<o:p></o:p></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-81048529908573309162021-06-13T23:03:00.003-07:002021-06-14T16:46:08.412-07:00The Moment of Shit, by Larry Buttrose<p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uOiMgp01Zwo/YMbxBdTVV6I/AAAAAAAACVM/oB4Zc_WMaG0gl8jQru4Sw1Ra4Ij3ZyB-ACLcBGAsYHQ/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-06-14%2Bat%2B4.02.29%2Bpm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="633" height="201" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uOiMgp01Zwo/YMbxBdTVV6I/AAAAAAAACVM/oB4Zc_WMaG0gl8jQru4Sw1Ra4Ij3ZyB-ACLcBGAsYHQ/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-06-14%2Bat%2B4.02.29%2Bpm.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I remember seeing the first Star Wars film soon after its release. It was a daytime screening, and the mid city cinema was packed. I loved the science fiction of Wells and Olaf Stapledon, Asimov and Phillip K. Dick, and was interested to see what the fuss was about with this new scifi movie. But as I sat in the dark the thought soon dawned, hang on, this is… matinee Flash Gordon. It seemed childish and formulaic - the brash and handsome hero, the callow unready young man and the wise elder, the slick-tongued princess in white, and the arch villain in not just a black hat, but full black armour and a full-face black helmet too, with the doom voice of a stern uncle. The big battle eventually came to its predictable climax, and the coda with the Roman-style Triumph seemed absurd icing on a silly confection. I expected everyone in the cinema to yawn and stretch and wander out… but to my surprise, they applauded. And I thought, “Oh, shit.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To me, the release of Star Wars – later renamed A New Hope in the eternally expanding universe of Star Wars chapters – represents the defining point when mainstream cinema began to decline. (My remarks here are confined to the mainstream, as of course all kinds of wonderful and exotic species flourish in the indy shadows.) Up until the release of Star Wars in 1977, mainstream and near-mainstream and “foreign” cinema of the late 60s and early-mid 70s had been full of interesting work, from Day For Night and The Last Metro, to Fellini Satyricon and Roma, Pasolini’s Decameron, The Go-Between, If, Picnic At Hanging Rock, Cool Hand Luke, The Three Days of the Condor and Dog Day Afternoon, to 2001, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon, to Network and Apocalypse Now, and the beautifully-crafted light fare, The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There was no such thing as a movie “franchise”; films didn’t come in numbered multiples and boxed sets with collectable figurines. (Yes there had already been The Godfather 2, and Jaws (1975) would go on to spawn a brood, but both of these were authentic movies, first and foremost.) <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I didn’t know it then, but Star Wars heralded a new brand of cinema, a mass marketed, franchised product that was a rocket engine of commerce. Of course film had always been about making money – money is the pumping blood of film – but artists had found a way to balance their art with the financial demands of studios and producers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Another thing changed around that time – film writing. Theory and “structural screenwriting” had already made its presence felt, and story was already being broken down into acts and beats, and producers already spoke knowingly of “character arcs”. Those had always been there of course… you can break down almost any film or indeed any story into three acts… but now screenwriters were starting to write with these <i>actively in mind</i>, instead of letting the story tell itself, and in the end naturally resolve into them. Books and courses on screenwriting were proliferating, and while there is a part to any art form that can be taught, just as there is part that can’t, the view seemed to grow, almost a kind of relief it felt in some quarters, that screenwriting didn’t require an artist. It was architectural, it was scientific. It could all be planned and plotted out on charts and such, end in the car chase and the kiss, and the job was done. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This seemed to reach a new level with the rebirth of animation, firstly through The Little Mermaid and then Toy Story (which to me are good films), to a plethora of animations from the big studios that now lay siege to the cineplexes every summer, and soon all year round. Kids entertainment has become the Colorado Lode of the studios, and while some of the better ones do deviate, most stick to an almost DNA-like patterning of story. And sometimes it feels the film is more a means to the merch</span></span><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But far worse was to come.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The seemingly endless rise of the Christopher Vogler-Joseph Campbell storytelling paradigm from the 80s-90s is another reason so much contemporary cinema is so bad, dull and infantile. The so-called "hero's journey" – exemplified par excellence in Star Wars but now evidenced in so much cineplex fare - means every film has a "hero" or "heroine", or someone funkily “outsiderish” but "relatable" and "likeable", and their "journey" (ugh) to their “goal” is the film. Any deviation from this model is heresy, or indy fringe. Yes, most films are about people interesting in one way or another, but must films really all yield up our human complexity and inner life to the three act "journey" (ugh) of goals, objectives and ends? Most of us in real life barely muddle through our beginnings and middles, much less seek some "goal" end. And when something definable and goal-like appears on our horizon, often we barely recognise it at first, and our path towards it is more often likely to be a meander of potholed accident. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Mainstream cinema is now so goal-orientated in its plotting and paint-by-numbers in its characterisation that it might as well have been created by those who ultimately sell it, the marketeers. And with the architectural-scientific model, we now dwell in a world not only inhabited by legions of Star Wars pictures and the like, but even greater horrors, the Marvel and DC “franchises”. These could readily be created by AI, and who knows, the worst nightmares of Orwell and Roald Dahl with machine manufacture of story and song could well come true… indeed, it often feels they already have. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s a truism to say that in the last decade or two, television has used the long form to great discursive use and explore the real and telling crannies of our human experience, and create compelling adult drama, while mainstream cinema plangently clangs on with the major chords to the point we can see the beat points of the screenplay as the actors are saying (usually yelling) their lines. But why must film, the great art form of the last century, now be confined to nonsense created for adolescent boys of all ages, and the small screen do the good stuff? In the process we lose sitting in a cinema with strangers, and the shared experience of finding what we have in common (for instance, the jokes we might laugh at, or things we are moved by), and what we don’t – such as my surprise at the end of Star Wars. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Having two children more than ten years apart, I ended up seeing pretty well all the Star Wars chapters at least once, and at least one spin-off. My initial impression never changed – except that the second lot, the prequels, were particularly dreadful, despite a creepy Chancellor with Hitlerian overtones, and some Shakespearean-attempted dilemma making. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: #e7f3ff; color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From my POV, mainstream film can only be saved if we remember screenwriting is an art, and writers write the stories they want to tell for a mass audience, as truthfully and devotedly and well as they can. The textbooks may be useful when a draft is down and has its inevitable problems to solve… but from the outset screenwriters need to think of themselves as more like novelists and playwrights – only writing in a different medium – and let the art, not the science, not the books, not the architecture, not the theory – create the story. It’s time writers for the screen forgot everything they’ve been taught, and remembered they’re writers, and their job is simply to write.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-286236986580943402021-04-01T17:09:00.000-07:002021-04-01T17:09:37.573-07:00DOMESTIC CONTRADICTIONS: CAT V DOG by Larry Buttrose<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U4boomDKkcw/YGZdc28_biI/AAAAAAAACSM/x4ix6q6iUYs7DW8xoCqWSdQzuplXD658gCLcBGAsYHQ/s474/iu.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U4boomDKkcw/YGZdc28_biI/AAAAAAAACSM/x4ix6q6iUYs7DW8xoCqWSdQzuplXD658gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/iu.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rkdlIGN8ttA/YGZddBD318I/AAAAAAAACSQ/R2xprPWYSus73mwWNjdSYTQMM8o0CnFtwCLcBGAsYHQ/s256/iu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="256" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rkdlIGN8ttA/YGZddBD318I/AAAAAAAACSQ/R2xprPWYSus73mwWNjdSYTQMM8o0CnFtwCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/iu.png" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p> I realise it is profoundly foolhardy to wade into this, it being among the oldest contested territory known to humanity. But what are long weekends for if not stupidity?</p><p>** Interest declared. Our family recently took delivery of a nice pedigreed puppy. The kind that everyone's first question on seeing it is "oooh, so cute, what breed is it?" As a lifelong cat lover, this has led to some challenging introspection, leavened only by re-reading that grand farce "A Confederacy of Dunces". </p><p>** These are my opinions only. No other person or organisation can be blamed for them. Just me.**</p><p><br /></p><p>CAT V DOG: THE FACTS</p><p><br /></p><p>The Nice Part</p><p><br /></p><p>Favourite Authors</p><p>CAT: Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot, Joan Didion.</p><p>DOG: Ayn Rand, Dale Carnegie, Jack London</p><p><br /></p><p>Favourite Music</p><p>CAT: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Philip Glass, Pink Floyd</p><p>DOG: AC/DC, Kenny Loggins, The Wiggles</p><p><br /></p><p>Favourite Screen</p><p>CAT: The Life of Pi, Born Free, Cat Ballou, Cats! (LOL) </p><p>DOG: Red Dog, Bluey, 101 Dalmatians, A Dog's Journey, Reservoir Dogs</p><p><br /></p><p>Nature</p><p>CAT: Noble, independent, may be misinterpreted as aloof</p><p>DOG: Loyal, may be misinterpreted at servile</p><p><br /></p><p>Demeanour</p><p>CAT: Cool</p><p>DOG: Waggy Daggy</p><p><br /></p><p>Presentation</p><p>CAT: Elegant</p><p>DOG: Cute</p><p><br /></p><p>Eating</p><p>CAT:<span> Food</span></p><p><span>DOG:<span> Anything </span></span></p><p><span><span><br /></span></span></p><p><span><span>Drinking</span></span></p><p><span><span>CAT: Champagne</span></span></p><p><span><span>DOG: Fourex</span></span></p><p><span><span><br /></span></span></p><p><span><span>Sounds</span></span></p><p>CAT: Purr, purr, purr, the occasional yowl, screeches during mating</p><p>DOG: Yap, yap, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.</p><p><span><span><br /></span></span></p><p><span><span>Shit</span></span></p><p><span><span>CAT:<span> Discreetly buried</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span>DOG:<span> Anywhere and left</span></span></span></span></p><p><br /></p><p>Piss</p><p>CAT: Pungent</p><p>DOG: Pungent</p><p>** Toss-up which is worse</p><p><br /></p><p>Affection with humans</p><p>CAT: <span> Reciprocal</span></p><p><span>DOG:<span> Salival</span></span></p><p><span><span><br /></span></span></p><p>The Not So Nice Part</p><p>Threat to Australian Native Wildlife</p><p>CAT:<span> Extreme. Cats should only ideally be allowed in inner and middle suburbs of major cities only and banned from city fringes unless owners make a written legally binding undertaking to keep them indoors at night. All cat owners should be licensed and have to respond annually to the wherabouts of their cat. Dumping of cats on city </span>perimeters should be a serious offence. There should be a concerted national campaign to exterminate feral cats (as well as goats, rabbits and other pests).</p><p>DOG:<span> Serious. Dogs are known to frighten, chase and attack native wildlife but are not considered to constitute the risk level of cats. Feral dogs are thought to be very few in number. There should be background checks on anyone who wishes to own an attack dog or mastiff and a licensing system requiring annual updates. </span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-15474845446229150852021-03-17T23:55:00.000-07:002021-03-17T23:55:28.662-07:00FISK reviewed by Larry Buttrose<p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zh3Obf_7HyM/YFL5FvPdW1I/AAAAAAAACQU/doITtDbsp1Q7YJL8WTeza57aqJXw995mQCLcBGAsYHQ/iu.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="474" height="180" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zh3Obf_7HyM/YFL5FvPdW1I/AAAAAAAACQU/doITtDbsp1Q7YJL8WTeza57aqJXw995mQCLcBGAsYHQ/iu.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br />I was working at Comics In The Park at the Harold Park when Kitty Flanagan started out in comedy in the early 1990s. She has worked at her craft in the decades since, and fine-tuned it to the point where she is now is a comedy powerhouse, brilliantly wry and superb with irony. </span><p></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;">But (and it does pain me to write the awful "But" here) if you're going to do a sitcom, I think she's just proved you need more of a detailed situation than "slightly offbeat woman goes to work for a suburban solicitor doing probate". </span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;">For example (I know comparisons are odious, but here goes...) Frayed has a woman with two spoilt kids forced to leave the high life in London after her husband dies in a compromising position and seems to leave her nothing but debts, and she struggles to survive back in the snakepit of her old home town in regional Aust. A lot at stake instantly - money, truth and justice, the kids' futures, her own - and her distress and that of her kids was manifest from the first frame and made for brilliant scenes and great comedy (and a degree of pathos too). </span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;">And yes, re sitcoms, there were two US comedies with no more of a premise than "friends negotiating love and life in New York in the 1990s", but they found great angles in every ep (well, Seinfeld did, and often very boldly, striking out in a direction we didn't think possible and going with it all the way). </span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;">The problems with last night's first ep of Fisk were there from the start. The exposition was handled poorly, and in lumps. Better for her to be a mystery creature who somehow wheedles her way back into working for a law firm after something went wrong in her life, and we learn more along the way, through drama. At present we're simply told she's returning to Melb after a divorce and she's a Supreme Court judge's daughter... there's no mystery for someone presented as an oddball. We know from the outset she's a (formerly) presumably privileged person who's in a jam in life. So? </span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;">The script overall was just not interesting and engaging enough, which is weird for Kitty, who always is. The thing about the vasectomy and sausage rolls didn't even make sense. Having a vasectomy is not nor even akin to having your dick cut in two. It's an internal procedure. How would this stop him making art with his dick? It wouldn't. No sense. (If indeed that was the problem... I wasn't even sure if it was that, or that he had a lot of kids with different mothers, propagating being an issue that a vasectomy would at least address if not by excision, but the whole deal seemed to be about his shall we say rather stretched art form). There were also just simply very few laughs. </span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;">I read she and her sister wrote it... my feeling watching was she would have been better advised having the first series written by seasoned writers (the Utopia team would be ideal for her) and join in later, once the characters have settled in and she's more used to the form. Writing for the screen beyond standup or sketch is another world after all. The reviews I've seen so far have been kind, which is fine, but it's really not great. Julia Zemiro looks positively uncomfortable, like she's trying to get away from a bad dinner party or has just trodden on a rake. The two lead blokes are fine but for me the only real saving graces in the opening ep were Alison Whyte and Glenn Robbins. Robbins was particularly good (well, he always is), even if the character he had to play he could have sketched with his knob.</span></p>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-65120357758445821902021-02-25T15:48:00.002-08:002021-02-25T15:57:20.912-08:00Mank and the Trial of the Chicago 7<p> </p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WjQVSD1LAtU/YDg2wQkOk6I/AAAAAAAACO4/C5aEV2h9bB4dR_lJTUcqxestPQoCjmn9QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1106/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-02-26%2Bat%2B10.37.01%2Bam.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="1106" height="235" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WjQVSD1LAtU/YDg2wQkOk6I/AAAAAAAACO4/C5aEV2h9bB4dR_lJTUcqxestPQoCjmn9QCLcBGAsYHQ/w567-h235/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-02-26%2Bat%2B10.37.01%2Bam.png" width="567" /></a></div><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p>Mank and The Trial of the Chicago 7 are both being touted as leading contenders for the coming awards season... I enjoyed both films immensely, but while the Chicago 7 seems to have enjoyed almost universal approval, quite a lot of people seem to have thought Mank wank. </p><p></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The interesting thing for me was they were both about the American Left, which has existed in name only since it was crushed by McCarthy (and rising postwar prosperity) nearly seven decades ago. The Democrats now are accused of "Socialism!!" for proposing universal health care, action on black rights, fairer pay and conditions, and laws to mitigate the worst of climate change and other measures that are part of the landscape out in the civilised world. It is a centrist party, and the Republicans are Right and Extreme Right. </span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now here are two big, glossy, mainstream feature films based on US leftist movements. Mank proposes Kane as bitter revenge by HM on Randolph Hearst </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(and belittling Marion Davies in the process) </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">for using his media power to defeat a bid for office by socialist Upton Sinclair... a bid that was one of the last times the US Left still actually existed as a force... Chicago 7 meanwhile looks at the brief uprising of the counterculture aligned with student activists coalescing around opposition to the Vietnam War (the Vietnamese call it the American War). </span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">That brief uprising was crushed not so much by this trial and other oppressive acts and murders (Malcolm X, MLK RFK et al), as by the inexorable rise of a new brand of more aggressive and rapacious capitalism, Reaganomics, that's been with us the past forty years. I really enjoyed the intellect, drama and internal conflict of both films... but as I say, my straw poll numbers on social media seem to favour The Trial of the Chicago 7.</span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><br /><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-57317681515848493542020-04-19T21:24:00.000-07:002020-04-19T21:24:56.060-07:00THE STRANGE AND TROUBLING CASE OF JULIAN ASSANGE by Larry Buttrose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kU21NXYH2tM/Xp0fJUUaYXI/AAAAAAAABxg/_lISGbTMN1gXLSGrm0Z9gOmWpkpn3I9PACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-04-13%2Bat%2B11.12.02%2Bam.png" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EmJTeGRxu5Y/Xp0fK_GT3ZI/AAAAAAAABxo/cysbHov7hQcK7i14VHA3kyoEklgxAz4WACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-04-13%2Bat%2B10.12.46%2Bam.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EmJTeGRxu5Y/Xp0fK_GT3ZI/AAAAAAAABxo/cysbHov7hQcK7i14VHA3kyoEklgxAz4WACK4BGAYYCw/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-04-13%2Bat%2B10.12.46%2Bam.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> Julian Assange in 2010 and 2019</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The revelation Julian Assange has a partner and they have two young children conceived during his time in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London raised the world’s eyebrows on Easter Sunday. The Assange saga was already akin to a spicy casserole, but this latest twist was like tossing in a handful of chopped chillie. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">South African-born lawyer Stella Morris says she joined Assange’s legal team and met him in 2011, and they began a relationship four years later. She says she posted the online Easter video revealing the relationship because UK authorities were about to reveal it anyway. She describes Julian Assange as generous, tender and loving, nothing like the figure we've seen routinely demonised by politicians and elements of the media for years. The closeness of their bond is apparent in the video, and as their young sons play in the room she tearfully recounts how she feels he’s been subjected to ten years of measures to break him down and try to destroy his life. She says she also posted the video because she’s worried that in his poor state of health he could contract COVID-19 in Belmarsh Prison in London, where he’s being held during US extradition proceedings, and wants him temporarily released on humanitarian grounds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The contentious cat, in the Embassy window</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Before Belmarsh his address was the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He spent seven years in refuge there, but that ended a year ago with his protection being lifted and Assange being hauled out by British police. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Not long before the embassy let the police in, an Ecuadorian minister claimed Assange was smearing human excrement on the walls. The media, well, lapped it up. London’s <i>Daily Mail</i> published pictures of a few dirty items in a kitchen sink and a tiny bathroom with, yes, the toilet seat up, in a story headed </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Assange inside his fetid lair: Revealed, the full squalid horror that drove embassy staff to finally kick him out.” <span style="color: #1d2129;">Presumably the Ecuadorian pronouncement was intended to justify the action to come, and the police arrived for him soon after.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Stella Morris says the world has failed Julian Assange. Over the years Australian politicians appear to have had little inclination to do much to help him, although the rather odd couple of Andrew Wilkie and George Christiansen did visit him in Belmarsh earlier this year, raised serious concerns about his health and urged the UK to block the US request to extradite him to face espionage charges in an American court. But other Australian politicians have seemingly done little. When she was prime minister, Julia Gillard called him a lawbreaker, but couldn’t say whose and which laws. He certainly hasn’t been charged with any breaches of Australian laws, which one would have thought the primary concern of our politicians. Some in the Australian media have branded him a braggart and a narcissist. Some have said he isn’t a “real journalist”. But his failure to serve a cadetship with the Woop-Woop Bugle does seem beside the point. Stella Morris called him a whistle-blower – and that he certainly is. He’s also certainly a citizen-journalist, an activist and a publisher. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Whatever you call him, he’s long blown the whistle on powerful forces in our world. That he sometimes published unredacted material that may have posed threats to vulnerable individuals is a criticism that can legitimately be levelled at him. </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">But Assange and his team at Wikileaks, as well as the self-exiled Edward Snowden, can be seen in their own way as carrying on the work of the likes </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">of </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Daniel Ellsberg and Woodward & Bernstein into the 21</span><sup style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">st</sup><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Century – holding authority to account by exposing dirty linen that otherwise would have remained stashed under “state secrets”. Yes, fine journalists from the world’s media did band together for the Panama Papers – but despite the scandalous nature of the commercial dealings they exposed, in the end that ebbed and subsided quickly. </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Releasing hundreds of thousands of classified US documents that show how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have really been conducted is another matter entirely. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">We must remember the Vietnam of Michael Herr’s</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><i style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Dispatches</i><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">was the last war in which the press had some freedom of movement to witness and report. Journalists could hop board military helicopters and report on what they saw in battle. Now coverage is tightly controlled, the reality of war hidden from public view, which made these troves all the more important. Perhaps the most famous item, a video titled “Collateral Murder”, showed at least 18 unarmed people including two journalists being gunned down by an Apache helicopter in Iraq in 2007. But by bringing material like this to light, Julian Assange was exposed to the full wrath of those he threatened.</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br />He first ran afoul of the law over sexual misconduct allegations by two women in Sweden. This part of the story is now so muddied and complicated that possibly many people can’t remember much about it. The claims put forward by Swedish prosecutors a decade ago seem largely - but not exclusively - to pertain to his not using a condom during intercourse. What actually happened in those encounters we may never know. He’s never faced a court on the allegations and in all likelihood won’t. Assange has always denied any criminal wrongdoing. One of his lawyers later suggested the women were “honey pots”, for what we’re told is known in the spook trade as “honey traps”. But one thing is certain – those sexual encounters marked the beginning of the end of Julian Assange’s liberty, health, youth, and ability to continue doing the investigative work he had been. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">After the complaints were lodged he was questioned by Swedish police, after which he returned to the UK, apparently unhindered. But then Sweden issued an international warrant, and he gave himself up to British police for questioning, and was granted bail. Sweden applied for and in May 2012 was granted his extradition. At that point Assange fled into refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy, saying he feared the US would try to extradite him from Sweden to face espionage charges over the troves of leaked documents. This was lambasted as outlandishly conspiracist by much of the world’s media - but it later turned out they were all wrong, and he was right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The media attacks continued nonetheless, seemingly intensifying as his years in the embassy wore on. When he was forcibly removed in April last year, the liberal US magazine <i>The Atlantic</i> published an excoriating piece by Michael Weiss headlined “Julian Assange Got What He Deserved”. The sub-heading accused him of being a “megalomaniac” and of “promiscuity with the facts” (whatever that means, but yes we do get the implication). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In it Weiss opened not with prim facts of his own regarding Assange’s work, but a slew of ad hominem slurs, even contriving an image link between the activist and a hanged dictator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">“In the end, the man who reportedly smeared feces on the walls of his lodgings, </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/oct/16/ecuador-embassy-tells-assange-clean-bathroom-feed-the-cat-do-laundry"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">mistreated</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> his kitten, and variously blamed the ills of the world on </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-risk-assange-review-20170504-story.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">feminists</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> and </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/07/what-wikileaks-might-have-meant-by-that-anti-semitic-tweet.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">bespectacled Jewish writers</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> was pulled from the Ecuadorian embassy looking every inch like a powdered-sugar Saddam Hussein plucked straight from his spider hole.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">I followed the links in Weiss's </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/julian-assange-got-what-he-deserved/587008/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">story</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> and found the kitten reference amounted to little more than a claim he needed to take better care of his cat (although it does appear rather untormented in photographs from the embassy, and if it is indeed the same cat in the video with Stella Morris it looks anything but a mistreated animal); that an </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">LA Times</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> review of a film about Assange quotes him calling the Swedish allegations a “radical feminist conspiracy”, but no mention of blaming the ills of the world on feminists; and that the tweet regarding Jewish writers was a deleted one from a Wikileaks source and its author is not verified. Assange has emphatically denied any allegation of anti-semitism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">But if Weiss’s intention was to smear his subject with ordure, he couldn’t have got off to a more pungent start, even if in a later paragraph he does acknowledge a former Ecuadorian minister denied the excrement claim, and said it might just have been an eviction pretext. Weiss goes on to mention the tentacles of Russia and the 2016 Clinton email disclosure and whether Assange was a possibly unwitting pawn in a geopolitical play. That may or may not be the case. Some people might think those emails got Donald Trump over the line. Given what seems to have been in them – in the end not much – and that the sharpest point of attack was Hillary Clinton using a private server for official emails, it’s hard to gauge if voters in Ohio and Indiana or elsewhere voted for Trump because of them, or because of Cambridge Analytica’s laser-sights targeting of swayable voters, or that they wanted a “disruptor” billionaire TV star for a president, or some other reason such as their jobs disappearing. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Weiss goes on to label Assange “the Bakunin of bullshit”. The Russian anarchist may just have enjoyed that, but even if it were the case, is that enough to support Assange being shackled and dragged to the US to face those (once ridiculed) spying charges, and potentially spend the rest of his life in an American jail for being a whistle-blower and doing what journalists are meant to do - report the truth? Did members of the US liberal media say Daniel Ellsberg “got what he deserved” when he was charged with espionage and theft<i> </i>over the Pentagon Papers? Or did they think perhaps he was a nice person who bathed regularly and minded his pets, to be supported rather than verbally eviscerated? Ellsberg was not a career journalist either – he was a former Defense Department official and worked for the Rand Corporation. And like Assange he blew the whistle on secrets about how the US was conducting a war, in his case Vietnam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Reading Weiss’s year-old article now is an unsettling reminder of how much vitriol Assange has faced, from all sides. He’s been called a narcissist by judges and journalists, and a “seedy ego-maniac” by the Telegraph in London. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Sydney Morning Herald</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> columnist Elizabeth Farrelly has consistently </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">argued for his right to a fair trial, and to avoid extradition to the US as she fears he won’t get a fair trial there. But she’s also written that nearly everyone she knows – including people one might suppose would support him – is “bored” with him (she’s not among them). If that is how seeming progressives in Australia see him, it strikes me as exceptionally odd and callous. And is he somehow meant to be entertaining? A few weeks ago she wrote about the start of the extradition proceedings in the UK, and how much is already stacked against him. And as she noted: “Everyone has a view on Assange. But, frankly, our views should be irrelevant. We, the public, are not in the know. We’re easily manipulated. We can be wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">For what it’s worth I’m going to have a crack at it anyway, even if unlike Elizabeth Farrelly I haven’t met him. My take is he’s a social justice activist who got in far, far over his depth, who learned the tools of the e-trade early on and saw their power and potential to crack vaults and divulge secrets he believed people have a right to know but their governments don’t want told. Has he always behaved perfectly? Well, have his critics? Has anyone? Are his personal habits scrupulously hygienic? Who can say? But one can only imagine what seven years hiding out in a cubby hole might do to your head and habits. But has he revealed important information that’s enhanced our understanding of power and <i>realpolitik</i> in the 21<sup>st</sup> century? Definitely. Has he pursued that goal, even if to his personal loss? He has. Has he become famous, notorious even, in the process? Definitely. Did he set out with the goal of gaining personal attention and fame, as one might expect from a “narcissist” and “megalomanic”? My own sense is no. He’s clearly highly intelligent and would have realised what and who he was taking on was a risk to all at Wikileaks, but as its chief to him in particular. But he went on with it. For personal fame? No - that would seem collateral damage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A few more questions then. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Does Michael Weiss, or the <i>Daily Mail</i>, or anyone else now believe Julian Assange was smearing excrement around and not bathing while he was involved in an ongoing intimate relationship? Smearing shit round your pad for time with a lover? Really? OK, but did he neglect cleaning his bathroom? Well, possibly. Line up ye guilty millions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Will the media say they were wrong to pour scorn on him when he said the US wanted to extradite him, all those years ago? Where are the retractions and apologies?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Why did the Ecuadorians really want to get rid of him? Stella Morris says he was being spied on, and this has been reported by others in his legal team. Does this mean officials, and possibly those of other governments, may have been able to monitor intimate acts? And might it have just been that Assange began coping better having love in his life, and that a decision was made somewhere to tighten the screws even harder? That’s not a conspiracy theory - just a question.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">His fate now largely rests with the British judiciary. If it agrees to his extradition, it would seem his US trial (and his future and that of his new family) will turn on whether it can be proved he encouraged and/or aided Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning to access the Iraqi trove. Daniel Ellsberg himself was charged with <i>theft</i> as well as espionage, but his case didn’t proceed because of “gross governmental misconduct” – viz, dirty tricks by Nixon’s men. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Ellsberg became a hero for liberals: Assange gets the opposite treatment, vilified for his alleged “character flaws”. But both essentially did the same thing, draw back the veil on how the US conducted itself in the world’s last three major conflicts - Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. That is the fact, and the work, of both men. For the record, Ellsberg has called the charges against Assange the most significant attack on press freedom since the Pentagon Papers and has hailed Manning as an “American hero”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Last year the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer said Julian Assange has been psychologically tortured. He said his mental and physical state have shown an alarming deterioration, and that Britain, Sweden and the United States were responsible. He also said he should not be extradited to the US. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Stella Morris says her partner is in solitary confinement 23 hours a day in Belmarsh Prison. She fears his life might be coming to an end. She says the world has failed him. She’s right. And as an Australian I feel we have failed him in particular, as one of us.</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Larry Buttrose, 20 April 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The views expressed here are my own only.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-90806590143675697942019-07-22T18:06:00.000-07:002019-07-23T18:09:18.490-07:00YESTERDAY reviewed by Larry Buttrose<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-epTG0khpMkA/XTZbhUSy5sI/AAAAAAAABpE/REhYWjBYQsgRqwt8c1zjQkvQMFk0WelNQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/4631344399_60c82dca3b_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-epTG0khpMkA/XTZbhUSy5sI/AAAAAAAABpE/REhYWjBYQsgRqwt8c1zjQkvQMFk0WelNQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/4631344399_60c82dca3b_m.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>YESTERDAY</b></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Written by Richard Curtis </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Directed by Danny Boyle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p>reviewed by </o:p>Larry Buttrose</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">image: badgreeb pictures</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Possibly a barometer for how the world is feeling is the quota of feelgood movies being released – which means the world must be feeling rather crap now. A maestro of feelgood is British writer Richard Curtis, with movie credits including </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and</span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Love Actually.</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Curtis does feelgood very well - and in the words of the great and tragically mortal Ian Dury, he’s doing very well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Musical</i>feelgood films are the current thing: <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i>, <i>Rocketman</i>, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis project, the forthcoming <i>Blinded By The Light</i>- about how Bruce Springsteen saves a nonconforming young South Asian Brit - and today there’s <i>Yesterday</i>, written by Curtis, about how the Beatles save a nonconforming young South Asian Brit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The recipe for <i>Yesterday</i>is house of Curtis to its sunny side of the valley, spiritually-nourishing, ethically-sourced roots. In this case, begin with a big dollop of unrequited love, simmer for a couple of hours with conflicted ambition, caramelise with comedy and garnish with sentiment. In this case, add the zest of some of the finest pop songs ever written (as well as a bunch by Ed Sheeran) and serve with a wink. And did I say concept is turned up high in this one? It’s sci-fi sky-high, so that from the start you might wonder if it isn’t perhaps overcooked and sticking to the bottom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Think on this – or as Richard Curtis might have put it, Imagine! (Okay, yes that was Lennon post-Beatles…). Jack Malik (Himesh Patel, <i>Eastenders</i>) is a struggling singer-songwriter in a greyscale English seaside town. Lily James (<i>Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!</i>) is Ellie, longtime friend, fulltime school teacher, his more than fulltime manager and true believer. She’s loyal, fun, smart. She’s also in love with him (self-absorbed Jack doesn’t even notice), and being played by a movie starlet, she’s gorgeous. He somehow doesn’t notice that either. She’s dressed down for the part, but as with Audrey Hepburn in <i>Funny Face</i>, his being blind to her radiance is an arduous suspension of disbelief on our part. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Young Jack’s career is going nowhere and he’s decided to chuck it when the high concept stuff literally strikes. Cycling home one night he’s hit by a bus just as the entire world gets blacked out for a few seconds. When the lights blink back on and Jack is extracted from the tarmac with black stumps for a couple of teeth, via some cosmic glitch no-one else it seems can remember the Beatles, Oasis, Harry Potter, Coca-Cola or cigarettes. In other words, not all bad news. Neither Jack’s friends nor Professor Google know of the songs nor even the existence of the Beatles – and, taking high concept right through the roof, even Jack’s Beatles vinyl LPs have vanished from his record rack. It’s as if the Beatles never were. Imagine! (Sorry.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It doesn’t take long for a certain look to cross Jack’s ever-harried features, and he frantically plasters the titles of as many Beatles’ songs as he can remember on post-it notes on his bedroom wall, and racks his brain for the lyrics, especially to <i>Eleanor Rigby</i>(which even though he finally remembers it, he never actually sings). But he does know <i>Yesterday </i>and <i>Let It Be </i>straight off the bat, and his musical resurrection to friends and family - the latter an over-cheesy scene - proves the beginning of the world’s rebooted love affair with the songs of the Beatles… only now they’re known as the songs of Jack Malik.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Slowly at first, then with the inevitable, wrecking ball momentum of an elimination reality TV show, Jack’s voice is heard, or more precisely, his (Beatle) songs are. Jack is a strong enough performer, but the songs are stellar to any ear that can hear. Enter Ed Sheeran, portraying a nerdy pop star named Ed Sheeran, with a nice slice of generosity. Sheeran asks Jack to open for him in Moscow, but with her teaching job, manager Ellie can’t accompany him. So he goes with his good-hearted n’er do well roadie mate Rocky (Joel Fry), who’s a bit like the love-child of Roy and Moss from the <i>IT Crowd</i>. With the aid of a rollicking <i>Back In The USSR</i>to a heaving mob of pinkly hyperventilating young Russians, Jack’s momentum approaches critical mass: he’s approached by Sheeran’s shudderingly awful manager Debra Hammer (Kate McKinnon) and accepts the hemlock chalice of fame with its inevitable ticket to LA. Ellie takes her redundancy with profoundly good grace, and they part continents. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Danny Boyle (<i>Trainspotting</i>,<i>Slumdog Millionaire</i>) has kept a steady enough hand on the tiller for the first act and a half, but Debra is an over the top pastiche of a yoga posing, preening, nasty corporate ogre, and her entry is a real downtick. Debra thinks it’s clever to say the ghastly things we know rock managers think: real ones keep that stuff to themselves. While the other roles are played for truth, this is written and played for knowing guffaws: it jars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jack finds himself torn between the false life he’s careering into, and Ellie, who inevitably begins to drift away just as he realises what she means to him. The launch of his album - already being hailed as the greatest ever – takes place on the rooftop (big nod to the Beatles’ 1969 gig) of a pub near his old home in England. Ellie’s there with her new beau, the stork-like producer Gavin who did Jack’s first Sun Session-style recordings, and when Jack performs <i>Help!</i>he delivers it with a wallop, if anything an even more desperate <i>crie de coeur</i>than the original. Disconsolate backstage afterwards, he agrees to see two people he suspects know the truth about him…one of whom has come armed with a toy yellow submarine. But he’s ready literally to face the music…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There’s a nice twist here, but unfortunately it’s also the point where the film really begins to unravel. Provided with an address, Jack travels to an isolated seaside home. There he meets someone who must not be named here, who tells us virtually nothing but gives Jack the sage advice we’ve been internally screaming for the entire movie – tell the girl you love her you twit, before she’s gone forever!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He plans to do so guesting at a Sheeran concert at Wembley, but first he confesses he’s a fraud, passing off the work of the Fab Four as his own. I won’t spoil the rest, but do warn it does involve possibly the Beatles’ most annoying-ever song, <i>Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Famed Hollywood script doctor Robert McKee has a simple maxim for screenwriters: <i>Tell the truth</i>. In script terms that means don’t try to paper over parts of your story that don’t add up or make sense just by saying “they’ll never notice it”. If that advice is ignored, after viewing a film like <i>Yesterday</i>the little things that might have nagged vaguely in the cinema become itches you must scratch. So when Jack Malik throws away his career – albeit for good, moral reasons – by naming to all of Wembley the four people who’d written “his” songs, it raises the question of is this a world in which those people never existed <i>as the Beatles</i>, or have they simply been forgotten as the pop phenomenon they were by nearly everyone alive? This is a decision that’s never properly made by the creative team, and it fuddles and undermines the narrative sandcastle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I realise this may be a level of analysis some might say a film like this doesn’t require. It’s just a bit of fun, eh? But <i>Yesterday</i>is about serious things: ambition, love, commitment, truth - and the answers and resolution are moral ones. The fudging of the central conceit refracts tellingly throughout the entire structure. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The other problem with unanswered questions is you may start to think about other things, such as the choice of songs. There’s an FX nod to one of the Beatles’ greatest, <i>A Day In The Life</i>- but no song. The mysterious and beautiful <i>Across The Universe</i>is reduced to a post-it note, and what about the Pythonesque mad joy of <i>I Am The Walrus</i>? I was grateful at least for <i>In My Life</i>, but so much of the genius of the Beatles was their unique synergy, their velvety, intoxicating melodies and thrilling harmonies, as well as their courage in stripping a song down to something spare, stark and affecting. And then there’s their fellow genius, producer George Martin, rightly known as “the fifth Beatle”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Beatles made great art as an organic whole. It wasn’t paint by numbers, packaging of components, and it was on the far side of the creative universe from the iPop of now. In trying to construct a worthy monument to them, Curtis and Boyle have stumbled over important story decisions – but they’ve shown too the genius of the Beatles can’t be deconstructed and reconstructed: their magic is there between the digits of the digital, it’s the unseen and ineffable, the air that swishes through this wildly cast narrative net.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet… I mostly enjoyed <i>Yesterday</i>- for its, yes, feelgood heart, its acting, direction, and wit. And its music – well, nearly of it. <i>Life goes on, bra!…</i>If only I could get that ear-worm out of my head, thanks a million Danny. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">©2019 Larry Buttrose</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-15050947585285160672018-08-13T18:55:00.000-07:002018-08-13T18:55:01.470-07:00<br />
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My apologies to all for my long absence in posting to this blog. I simply wasn't able to get access because of forgotten codes etc. Now it's good to be back, and I'll post more soon. - LarryLarry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-63098331524934196992017-02-14T15:11:00.000-08:002017-02-14T17:12:31.453-08:00IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE LION by Larry Buttrose<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photograph Larry Buttrose</span><br />
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<i>Saroo Brierley (centre), Swarnima Mandloi (fourth left) and Saroo's mother Kamla (second left), and me at right of Saroo.</i><br />
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<span style="line-height: 200%;">I was sitting in
my home office in the Blue Mountains on a typically chilly midwinter day when
for some reason I checked an old email account I rarely used and found an email
from someone at Penguin Books. When I opened it I saw it was from the
publisher, Ben Ball, asking about my interest in ghost-writing a book about a
lost Indian boy.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I rang him and instantly knew this
was a remarkable true life saga: a young boy gets lost on a train in the west
of India, and ends up thousands of kilometres away in the chaos of Howrah
Station in Calcutta (now Kolkata). On the streets near the station he survives
for weeks, if not months, as a street kid, before being turned in to the police
and then plucked by fate in the form of a kind-hearted adoption agent, and a
few months later is living with his new family in Hobart. There he has a
typically Aussie childhood, and then a quarter of a century later, after years
of searching using Google Earth by following rail lines away from Kolkata, locates
his original home town. He flies to India and miraculously manages to meet his
family who still live in his old home town. The family is overjoyed to see
their lost son again. The circle closes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Before long I was sitting in the
Penguin’s Sydney office in Surry Hills where Ben introduced me to Saroo and his
then manager, Andrew Fraser. Saroo was a sizeable man with a direct, no-nonsense
manner. Andrew exuded experience and professionalism, yet at the same time was
relaxed and easygoing. They both seemed open and down to earth, and we eased
into the meeting. I told them how much I loved the story and what a terrific
book it would make, but also spoke about how much I loved India, having travelled
there on a number of occasions, and had included it in two travel books. I had
even set a novel in Pondicherry (now Puduchery), written while staying in the
legendary Sea Side Guest House on the esplanade looking out onto the Bay of
Bengal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The three of us seemed to get on,
and I returned home hopeful of getting the job. I didn’t know how many others
were interviewed, but I imagined it would be a few - it was a very good
project. When I didn’t hear anything for around a week, I thought it might have
gone to someone else, but wrote Ben an email to check, and he later got back
apologising that he’d been off work due to illness, and that if I still wanted
the job I could have it. I confirmed that I did indeed want it. The deadline
was very tight though: they needed the book researched in Tasmania and India,
and a manuscript of 80 thousand words, completed by early December, for planned
release for Mothers Day the following year. By the time the contract was
finalised, that was just three months to research and write the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would clearly be a challenge, especially
as I was also working as a sessional university teacher and contracted until
November, but I quickly scheduled in two trips to Hobart to interview Saroo and
his Australian family, working around my university commitments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I had never been
to Tasmania before, and the airliner flew in through low banks of purple black
clouds, over a slate-toned sea and a jagged coastline that looked a bit like
Ireland. I checked in to my hotel near the Hobart docks, called home to my
partner Belle and our then three year old, Ada, and settled in. The following
day I recorded the first of many hours of interviews with Saroo. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There had been a lot of coverage of
the story already, from the BBC and major American magazines, to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Age</i> and ABC local radio in Hobart.
The media interest had begun soon after Saroo found his mother, brother and
sister in Khandwa, the small regional centre in Madhya Pradesh in the central
west of India that was his birthplace. Neighbours had initially joined in the
celebration, but word soon spread through the working class suburb of Ganesh
Talai where they lived, and then through the entire town, and before long
people were thronging in to see him, the small boy who had vanished so long ago
and come home as a grown man, from halfway around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next day the local media was onto the
story, and word spread much farther afield, with crews flying in to cover the
story and take it to all corners of India. That was when the international
media got hold of it, and, ultimately, Penguin gained the rights for a book. It
had all happened in the space of just a few months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I was pretty amazed,’ Saroo told
me, at our first recording session. He speaks with the laconic, matter-of-fact
delivery of many Australians. ‘It was obviously a big thing for me personally,
but I never could have imagined it would be of such interest to so many others.
Sometimes I just had to go back to my hotel room in Khandwa to get away from
it, it was so intense.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now he was sitting in another hotel
room in Hobart, and telling the story again, only this time it would be the
account of his entire life, where he had grown up in Khandwa, and how he had
become lost on that fateful night, the train journey across India, survival on
the streets of Calcutta, and everything that followed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I took the questioning back to his
earliest memories, his family, his mother and father. His father was Muslim,
and his mother Kamla was Hindu. He told me of the shocking day his father had
arrived home with another woman and said she was now his wife. Kamla and the
four children had to go and live elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Saroo told me his
name was an Anglicised version of Sheru, which means “Lion”. I asked his
father’s surname, and he said it was Khan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘That means “emperor” or “king”, I think,’ I said. ‘So there you are -
you’re the Lion King!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Over the next few days we pieced
together his childhood, and how his elder brother Guddu had become a
breadwinner, working as a sweeper on trains, while his mother worked carrying
large stones on her head for building sites and roads. They only made a
pittance between them, however, and often the children had to forage, stealing
tomatoes, and in one hair-raising episode in which they nearly got caught, for
eggs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Between interview sessions, Saroo
would go home, search his memories, write down notes and bullet points, and
then we would sit down together and go over his recollections again. Some
memories were clearer, but others we needed to go over again and again, because
his memories were hazy, or something wasn’t quite adding up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the early issues I raised was
his memory of the train journey across India. His recollection was that on the
night he got lost, he had gone to the local railway station with Guddu, and
they had taken a train to the nearby town of Burhanpur, where Guddu was working
at the station. It had been a spur of the moment decision, and it was already
mid evening when they got there, and five year old Saroo was tired. His brother
had gone off to do his work, and Saroo had stretched out on a bench to sleep.
When he awoke some time later, it was still the dead of night, and he had
called for his brother, but got no answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then he saw that a train had drawn up at the platform, its doors open,
and he thought his brother might be on it, sweeping up papers and peanut
shells, as he often did on-board trains as well as on the platforms. Soon after
Saroo got on board, however, the doors had clanged shut and the train started
moving, and so his horror journey, locked on board a train going to the far
side of India, had begun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>His memory was that he had spent a
night the train, and it had arrived the next day in Calcutta. He had told as
much to an American magazine reporter who had visited Hobart not long before to
write a major feature story, and who had reported it as a journey of some 13
hours. But one look at an online map made me doubt very much that an Indian
train could travel all that distance in such a short time. I had travelled a
fair bit on Indian trains, and one thing I knew was they never got anywhere
fast. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Also, I wondered why there had been
no-one else in the carriage for him to speak with, or why he hadn’t managed to
call out to people on the platforms at stops along the way. This sort of detail
Saroo was not at all sure of, and said that as a very small child alone with no
money, no ID, just the shirt and shorts he was dressed in, he must have lapsed
into some kind of semi-conscious state.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That made sense, and was at least a
partial explanation. It also helped make sense of the discovery I made on the
Indian Railways site that even now, 25 years later, it still takes the only
train that goes direct from Burhanpur<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to
Calcutta a full 32 hours to make the journey - more than double what the American
magazine had reported. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After each day’s work I would have
dinner and then return to the computer to start roughing the book out. Saroo
would email in extra pieces of information – something he had just recalled, or
an answer to a question that had hadn’t been able to remember at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the clock was ticking. I had 10
weeks left to come back to Hobart and interview other family members, finish
the university semester and finalise student marks, and get on a plane to India
with Saroo. And by the time we finished our expected month in India, I needed
to have the book written. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The second trip to Hobart was most
notable for my meeting with Sue, Saroo’s Australian adoptive mother. She was
engaging, quick-witted and enjoyable company. She had always been a passionate
believer in adopting in-need children from countries less privileged than our
own, and her husband had come to embrace that view too. Not only had they
adopted Saroo, but his adoptive brother Mantosh too, and they had raised the
two Indian boys as their own. I had asked Saroo if he had experienced racism
growing up as a dark-skinned Indian kid in schools in Tasmania decades ago, and
he had said ‘no’, but Sue’s memory was different. She said there had been
racism, including one woman who would not let her child be on the same sports
team. When I put this to Saroo, he said ‘I probably just wasn’t very aware of
it back then’, and left it at that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I also interviewed his girlfriend,
Lisa, including the Eureka moment when he had found what he was looking for
online.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘He more or less yelled from the
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bed] and poked my head around and looked at the computer screen [in the living
room] and he goes “This is it, this is my home town!” And I go, “Are you sure,
are you certain?” and he said “Yeah, yeah, it is, it is!” And I said “Oh god,
that’s great!” So yeah, that was quite a happy moment.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Back home, I transcribed the
recordings and drafted what I had from them, and bounced them to and fro with
Saroo for additions, deletions and changes. There was 20,000 words and the
bones of the story down, but I was apprehensive yet about the mountain that needed
to be climbed, with the bulk of the book yet to be written while travelling in
India. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">November came
around quickly, and I was aboard a flight to Delhi. Saroo had gone on ahead and
was meeting me at the airport. We had been booked into a tourist hotel near the
airport that neither of us particularly liked. Still, the last time I had been
in Delhi I had stayed at Ringo’s Guest House, a legendary traveller’s haunt
near Connaught Place in the centre of the city, where each room came with its
own full tray of rat poison under the board-top bed, and a wafer thin mattress
was extra. This one was a business traveller’s hotel, and by contrast, it was
cushy, if a bit dull.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although it was winter in Delhi, the
days were still warm and close. I had read that thousands of people in the city
died each year from illnesses associated with air pollution, and could believe
it: the smog was so thick its tendrils clutched in at your nasal tracts. I had
first visited Delhi back in 1987. Then the centre was still manageable. Yes the
roads were chaotic, with every kind of vehicle and conveyance vying for space
with pedestrians, as well as wandering cows, pigs and dogs, but the intervening
decades of development had led to an explosion in traffic. The roads were all
clogged, backed up, and a taxi journey anywhere took an eternity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One night we sat at a café on the
corner of an arterial road near our hotel at rush hour, and witnessed a most
extraordinary sight. This was no simple traffic jam, but buses, trucks, cars,
cycles and motorcycles, taxis and tuk-tuks, animals, humans, all packed in so
tightly and densely together that they appeared to constitute a multi-hued
paste in the process of being extruded millimetre by millimetre from a tube. It
did not move so much as unfold, like a bizarre stage tableau, a cruel,
vehicular butoh, before the astonished eye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I suggested we visit the Red Fort.
Built in the seventeenth century by Shah Jahan, whose workers also constructed
the Taj Mahal, it was here that masses gathered on 15 August 1947 when India’s
first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru raised the nation’s new flag to celebrate
Indian independence from Britain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The massive fort remains a potent
symbol of the Indian state, and I wanted to ask Saroo how Indian he felt within
its walls. But as we stood there, in the heart of that fortress, his answer was
direct – even here, he felt Australian. Although there were many aspects of
India he liked and identified with, he was Australian. And I could see he was
right. I was born in Adelaide of an Anglo-Celtic family, but in many ways Saroo
was more Aussie than me. After all, I’d packed hiking boots for the trip, while
Saroo walked the broken and dirty pavements and roads of India in shorts and a
pair of thongs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Fort was hit by a terrorist
attack in 2000, and security was tight at the main gate, with a battery of
metal scanners, and then we had had to walk through the machine gun sights of
the permanent security post beyond. We faced similarly tight security two days
later when we flew down to the city of Indore, north of Khandwa. But there as
they scanned and patted us down and got us to stand up on blocks and extend our
arms for closer examination, I was grateful for the level of security, and I’m
sure Saroo was too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The uneventful flight south to
Indore was followed by a typically nail-biting, terrifying two-hour taxi ride
south down a busy main road, until we finally arrived at Khandwa in the late
afternoon, and were dropped off at our hotel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The place was a converted old
British army barracks, one star at best, but there was little choice in
Khandwa: it wasn’t a place tourists came to, and the face I saw in my room’s
cracked mirror was the only non-Indian one I would see the whole time we were
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Breakfast was interesting. If we
were lucky there was toast, perhaps an egg. Sometimes the only thing we could
get was a cup of tea, without milk. While I had stayed before in pretty basic
accommodation in India, this set a new standard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Soon after we arrived, Saroo set off
alone to visit his family, something we both thought the right thing. He had
only spent a few days with them on his first visit earlier in the year, and was
still feeling his way towards getting to know them again. But the next day we
set off together, navigating the broken and cratered roads into the centre of
Khandwa, about one kilometre away. There we came to the railway underpass that
was one of the map features he had identified on Google Earth to find his way
back here. Considering the commonness of so many features he recognized… a
water tower, a lake, the underpass… it remains a miracle that he found his way back
here at all, just as it is a miracle he survived on the streets alone in
Calcutta as a small, lone boy. Yes, other kids survive on the streets there,
but they are members of gangs, groups: young Saroo had been entirely on his
own. But Saroo’s life has all been about defying the odds, and here we were,
walking under that underpass and through the streets of Ganesh Talai, on our
way to his Indian family, and home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ganesh Talai is a working class
area, poor by metropolitan Indian standards, but no cardboard box chawl. These
were little houses, butted one against the other, in an orderly layout of
streets and lanes. Houses were neatly painted, sometimes in bright colours, and
there was an immediate sense of a close-knit neighbourhood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We turned into a narrow alleyway,
and the second house on our left belonged to Saroo’s mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was there to greet us, a greying, slender
but strong looking woman with a keen eye and welcoming smile. The years she had
carried rocks for road crews were written on her, and the trials she had
endured losing two children, yet strangely enough, a moment later they
vanished. Life had touched her, yes, but somehow its mark remained light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As we talked, she fondled Saroo’s
hand maternally. His brother Kallu and sister Shekila both arrived as well, and
were equally delighted to see him again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Saroo has long forgotten most of his
Hindi, so the next day we returned with an interpreter. This was serendipity.
We had been expecting his mother’s elderly neighbor to translate for us, as she
had on Saroo’s first visit, but I had chanced upon another potential
translator. I had met Swarnima in a queue at the railway station that morning.
I had overheard her speaking in clear, perfect English to the elderly man
behind the counter. She had noticed I was a foreigner in town, gave me a
quizzical look, and we spoke. She was young and educated, highly intelligent,
just what we needed. It turned out that she was from a wealthy political family
in Khandwa, back home for the Diwali holidays from her job in Mumbai, and after
I explained why we were there she was happy to spend some of her time back in
her home town working with us. Saroo and I were even invited into her family
home for a Diwali ceremony, and the ongoing relationship worked so well that she
ultimately played Kamla in dramatised sequences that Channel Nine shot in India
for its 60 Minutes segment on Saroo in 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v1XJqk2GtIY/WKOLqQZHJ4I/AAAAAAAABYE/ITOXzOAm5AgapTXCpAv6fwUmB7_oBjPyQCK4B/s1600/IMG_0215.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v1XJqk2GtIY/WKOLqQZHJ4I/AAAAAAAABYE/ITOXzOAm5AgapTXCpAv6fwUmB7_oBjPyQCK4B/s320/IMG_0215.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">photograph Larry Buttrose</span></div>
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<i>Me with Swarnima and Saroo at Diwali ceremony</i></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%;">With Swarnima’s
help I was able to fill in aspects of the story from his family’s point of
view, including his mother’s unshakeable faith that one day Saroo would return,
as he ultimately did. She said she used to face to the south, and pray for his
return. As it turned out, she had been facing in the right direction, even if
he was farther south than she might have ever imagined.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The days passed quickly in Khandwa.
We visited the town centre, where Saroo pointed out landmarks such as the old
cinema, and the nearby lake, and other crucial landmarks he had identified on
Google Earth. We also met with Rochak Nagori, the young man who ran Khandwa My
Home Town, the Facebook group Saroo had contacted for vital confirmation of
facts, and who had helped cement the conviction that he was right that he had
finally found his home town after years of fruitless searching online.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A major part of our journey was to
be crossing India by train, following as well as we could the route that the
young Saroo might have taken. Saroo had not done this on his first trip back,
but I considered it crucial for him to re-live it to see if any memories came back,
as well of course as perhaps recalling more things that happened to him in
Calcutta, once we reached our destination. There was only one direct service
between Khandwa and Calcutta, the daily train service from Mumbai. For
authenticity, we needed to catch it from Burhanpur, the next town along the
line, where the young Saroo had ventured onto a train in the middle of the
night, and couldn’t get off it until it stopped in Calcutta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After we said our goodbyes to his family, a
small crowd gathered in the nearby dusty town square of Ganesh Talai, where the
locals again farewelled the man who had returned. As we headed off, small boys
around the same age as the young Saroo had been ran alongside the car, laughing
and shouting out their goodbyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">After another predictably
hair-raising road trip to Burhanpur, we checked in to the one hotel that looked
reasonable, dined at tables set outside under the stars, and turned in for an
early night. A taxi was booked to pick us up before dawn, to take us to the
station. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We emerged with our bags into a
chilly pre-dawn, with sleeping people huddled in blankets by the roadside, and
found our driver. We set off down silent streets, past low blocks of concrete
apartments, darkened houses and shuttered up shops, past pigs rooting in the
dust for scraps, to the station. When we arrived the parking lot was already
alive with people jostling about with big bags and even bigger bundles, and we
made our way over the overpass, to the platform where our train would arrive.
It was running late - no-one was quite sure how late - so we settled in for a
wait. Once I had waited ten freezing hours on a platform in Varanasi, and hoped
this would be no repeat of that. While we waited, Saroo pointed out the water
tower behind the station, which had been another of his vital landmarks on
Google Earth. As I had been all along, I dutifully photographed everything for
the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Swarnima had helped us book our
seats back in Khandwa, and so we were at least assured of berths. We were
travelling first class, but on this train that didn’t translate to anything
fancy – just two seats that converted into bunks for sleeping. The sheets at
least were clean, and the meals that came around were tasty <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thalis</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The train trundled off into the
early morning, along dusty plains that gradually gave way to more fertile
countryside. The vista opened out on either side of seemingly endless fields
being tilled by India’s great agricultural class, the ones who don’t live in
the flashy apartment blocks in Delhi and Mumbai, but in humble villages where
they tend their crops and beasts. The sky was a hazy blue, and went on over the
flatlands forever. Occasionally we passed through towns, and then cities, with
factories and industrial plants, before plunging on ever eastwards, back into
the rural heartland of India. I tried prompting Saroo about the world that
passed by in our window, but it was clear that little remained in his memory
from that terrifying journey he took as a boy. That was not surprising, but I
did my best to prompt responses, and occasionally they came.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That night I slept soundly, swaying
in my bunk, and in the morning some young children travelling with their
parents quizzed us, oddities that we were aboard this train. I told them a
little about Saroo, and to remember his name and that they had travelled on
this train journey with him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As the second morning wore on, palm
trees and lush green undergrowth appeared in our window, and paddy fields
flooded with water that would have been an amazing sight for the young Saroo,
coming from such a dry part of India. We passed satellite towns, and then the
train began to slow as we approached the Asian metropolis of Kolkata. I had
been here once before, and remembered it fondly for its combination of the intelligence
and wit of the Bengalis, and its superb British Raj-era architecture such as
the Victoria monument and the Writers Building (from where armies of clerks
penned and dispatched the orders of the once all powerful East India Company).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Leaving the train, we found
ourselves at the centre of the maelstrom that is the Howrah railway terminus.
People swirled everywhere around us, hauling bags, clutching briefcases,
begging for a rupee, running for a train. I asked Saroo to stand in the middle
of it, and photographed him standing still amid all that frantic movement, just
as he had decades before, even if now he towered above the crowd, whereas back
then he would have gazed up into an endless mass of passing legs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Outside was hot and sultry, the air
heavily polluted, although not as bad as Delhi had been. We had been booked
into an upmarket hotel out on the edge of town near the airport, and so next
came the long taxi ride out there. Security was tight on arrival, and our bags
were scanned before we could go into the gleaming new tower building. The world
we entered was cool and ordered, a little slice of five star western affluence,
and our rooms were ideal as a retreat from the grind of the world outside,
which we would need to re-enter each day in pursuit of Saroo’s story here.
There was a gym and even a rooftop infinity pool, from the cooling depths of
which we could watch the endless procession of jetliners on final approach to
the airport. There were plenty of bars too, but better than that, my room was cool
and quiet, and with fast wifi. I knew I could settle in here and finish the
book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I had written some pieces along the
way, but still only had about 30,000 words down, and needed to write 50,000
more in around two and a half weeks to meet my deadline, as well as conduct
more research here. That was going to be a push for anyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>During the days that followed, we
went back to Howrah Station by the Hoogly Rover, where the young Saroo had
survived somehow, on scraps from food vendors, and had slept under the massive
Howrah Bridge with sadhus. He had also almost drowned here – twice – swimming
in the river. We visited the home for lost children where he had been taken
after being picked up by police, a fortress-like structure to which, he was
told back then, children came but never left. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But he had left, because of a monumental
stroke of luck. A woman called Mrs Sood ran an adoption agency, and had read
the police notes about Saroo, and noted his account that he had come from far
away, involuntarily, by train. She advertised in newspapers in Bengal and
surrounding states, but no-one came forward to claim him as their child. Little
did she know that she would have needed to advertise on the far side of India.
But she took Saroo into her orphanage, which we also visited, and soon began
arrangements for his adoption. Within a few months of being picked up by
police, Saroo would be living with a loving family in Hobart, a place so far
beyond his experience it must have felt as if he had stepped onto the surface of
a very benign Mars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mrs Sood trained as a lawyer in
Delhi, but found a calling to help the needy in Calcutta, and has been helping
arrange adoptions for children for decades. She is now an elderly but spry, wry
and witty woman with sparkling eyes. She still runs the adoption agency from
the same premises, in a British-era mews house in central Kolkata, and she
greeted Saroo like her own child, which in a way he is, owing his life to her –
something about which he was keenly aware. She showed me photographs and his
file from back then, and was clearly delighted to learn he had rediscovered his
Indian family, and now far from being the lost waif whom she had taken in, he
had not just one family, but two.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our research done, Saroo flew off
for some R&R in Mumbai, planning another visit to his family before
returning to Australia. For me, though, tens of thousands of words still needed
to be written before my deadline. My daily skype sessions with Belle and Ada
helped keep me sane, but basically my life became three meals a day in the
hotel restaurant, some time in the gym and pool, and the rest at my desk,
churning out copy. With a few days to go I still needed twenty or so thousand
words, but after a discussion with the publishers, the amount was reduced to seventy
thousand words. That I knew I could make, and I managed to write the final
sentence on the morning of the deadline, and pressed Send on the email
containing the finished manuscript. After that, it was in the expert hands of
the editor, Michael Nolan, and Ben Ball (who both did a terrific job on it). All
that remained for me was breakfast, check out, and a short taxi ride to the
airport.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Arriving home early the next day, I
was met by my own family, Belle and Ada, and thanked the heavens that I had them.
I already knew the value of family, but my journey with Saroo had taught me
something very personal: without it we are merely chaff in the wind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t7cwT7ZeRh8/WKONDk7JSsI/AAAAAAAABYM/tZsOboR8k9AqX9RBu8WXnqTc-DWnXnq1wCK4B/s1600/IMG_0185.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t7cwT7ZeRh8/WKONDk7JSsI/AAAAAAAABYM/tZsOboR8k9AqX9RBu8WXnqTc-DWnXnq1wCK4B/s320/IMG_0185.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">photograph </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Larry Buttrose</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i>Saroo and his mother with brother Kallu and sister Shekila</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com178tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-47216088759384178562016-08-01T18:47:00.001-07:002016-08-01T18:47:21.874-07:00 Republic Needs to Be Back on the Agenda<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5hT2zru0tsE/V5_7COzUTaI/AAAAAAAABTI/tU5oXls1-pUQbDSs-NdNZ0LWQwTz5EfFACK4B/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5hT2zru0tsE/V5_7COzUTaI/AAAAAAAABTI/tU5oXls1-pUQbDSs-NdNZ0LWQwTz5EfFACK4B/s400/Unknown.jpeg" width="400" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull once
remarked that to have Prince Charles as king as Australia’s head of state was unthinkable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Now, with the Queen at 90, he may be rethinking
the unthinkable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But will Australians really countenance a
continuation of our head of state sitting upon a throne on the far side of the
earth? Will it not be time at last, then, for Australians to have a head of
state who as Paul Keating put it simply, is “one of us”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">All too often when the matter of a republic
is discussed, the argument is that there are “more important things” to deal
with, and that “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Yes there are always crucial matters in
people’s lives to be debated and dealt with, like the economy, climate change, education,
health, welfare and the environment, but is it not crucial to our development
as a nation and people that we create at last our full own identity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Walk down any city street and you will see
we are no longer an outpost of any long-faded British Empire. You will see the
faces of people from throughout the world who have come to call Australia home,
in an ongoing and largely unsung triumph of multiculturalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What is the relevance to us as a people of
a British monarch, then, other than that we can’t be bothered enough to change
it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Why do we still have the flag of a
colonising power in the top left hand corner of our own? Are we still so short
of maturity as a nation that we need that reassurance? We seem more interested
in almost everything else beyond our own identity and place in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Well, it’s time we grew up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The North American colonies went to war with
Britain for their independence, and India under the determined and lengthy nonviolent
strategy of Mahatma Gandhi wore down British resistance to letting the “jewel
in the crown” go its own way. Next year the Indian republic will be turn 70.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Given the opportunity back in 1999, we
Australians couldn’t even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vote</i> for a
republic. Yes there are questions about how the debate was framed by then prime
minister John Howard, but the case for a republic was vigorously pushed by the
then leader of the movement, Malcolm Turnbull. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Has he really changed his spots? Or has he
put his own views to one side for the time being to allay the more conservative
wing of his own party? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span>When the reign of Queen Elizabeth II comes
to a conclusion in the not too distant future, as it must, our choice then is a
clean break with the past and the birth of a new republic with all the vibrancy
and optimism of modern Australia, or to cling on still to the apron strings,
for no better reason than fear of change, or that we simply can’t be bothered
thinking about who we are and our proper place in the world, socially,
economically, and most tellingly of all, geographically.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">When Charles is finally crowned, either by abdication or the passing of the current monarch, he may choose another name as king, or else become King Charles III, and among other titles, Australia’s Head of State.</span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-43229512371423199882016-04-07T17:42:00.000-07:002016-04-07T17:42:23.262-07:00HESTON'S CROWN<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YpP0wg1ldfY/Vwb-H3SRz1I/AAAAAAAABR0/Cy3nQXZfkxEmc9z72y-GY6S7YL8FDw4fA/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YpP0wg1ldfY/Vwb-H3SRz1I/AAAAAAAABR0/Cy3nQXZfkxEmc9z72y-GY6S7YL8FDw4fA/s400/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Watched the SBS show about Heston Blunenthal's move of his restaurant from England to Crown Casino with intermingled feelings of fascination and revulsion. The shows are hour-long advertainments for Crown, punctuated by ads for, yes, Crown. But the level of fussiness over food, the search for ever more bizarre incarnations of edibles in the name of culture, is a bit, well, stomach-turning. The insane fastidiousness even of table settings, not to mention the $525 price tag in a world where most people subsist on a dollar or two a day, is hard to abide. While one has admire him for his tenacity, creativity and hard work over the years, at this level of fastidiousness food becomes little more than high-end very conspicuous consumption and cult of celebrity. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-31294779496783552182015-09-16T17:32:00.000-07:002015-09-17T00:55:51.525-07:00Seven Stanzas Contemplating Our Humanity In the Ikea Cafe<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dKGQ2LN6O74/VfoJoTItZRI/AAAAAAAABPc/tn5VwG9InJo/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dKGQ2LN6O74/VfoJoTItZRI/AAAAAAAABPc/tn5VwG9InJo/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Swedes are smart.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">I own a Swedish car.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">I tell my six year old daughter <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is the only car ever designed <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">For safety first and foremost.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">She seems suitably impressed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">I drive it defensively.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">With Ikea they have taken it<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">To a profound and mystical level.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">We surf its physical intranet<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Follow the yellow brick road<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Through the hut of duckness,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Pilgrims in this brooding sepulchure,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">This tin skin duomo of the home.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">They understand us. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Th<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">ey know what we want.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Not what we desire, which is piffling,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But what we need, what we crave,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A place of safety, the safety c</span>apsule<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of my Volvo, a refuge<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">For the lost herd, the craven horde <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">In our serried ranks with chins held high<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">And our eyes shining brighter<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Than bunnies in a picture book,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Or a lurid Maoist poster.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">We drive our trolleys all the way<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">To the check-out and salute, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Credit cards raised to tap in triumph.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">- Larry Buttrose</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-86040439222470220942015-08-30T18:33:00.000-07:002015-08-30T18:33:12.714-07:00OCCASIONALLY<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I never knew the reason
why<br />The evening and the dew<br />Never saw a dragon fly<br />Till I’d seen a few<br /><br />It’s a wonder that I
ever have<br />The smarts to lace my
shoe<br />When suddenly I’m
thinking<br />Of always calling you<br /><br />Occasionally I do<br />Mulligatawny Stew<br />Occasionally I do<br />How about you.<br /><br />Sometimes you find
you’re whistling<br />A tune that you abhor<br />Sometimes it’s like the
midnight knock<br />Fondling at your door<br /><br />Sometimes it’s like the
key of life<br />Is jingling on your ring<br />Sometimes it’s all just
sweet sweet peas<br />Germinating<br /><br />Occasionally I view<br />A sky that’s tending
blue<br />Occasionally I view<br />The view<br /><br />And there’s the thought<br />That strikes me hard<br />I lost the game<br />But won the card<br />‘Twas on a whim<br />‘Twas to a wit<br />I don’t know why<br />I got bit<br /><br />Occasionally I do<br />Autumnal hues accrue<br />Occasionally I do<br />Winter too.<br /><br />Occasionally I do<br />Mulligatawny Stew<br />Occasionally I do<br />Rhubarb too.<br /><br /><br />-Larry Buttrose</span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-70414746442073289622015-08-11T17:49:00.001-07:002015-08-11T17:49:36.333-07:00PIMLICO<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TvdOTlBO1PI/VcqXugO85cI/AAAAAAAABOU/IKZ4yPxoPXs/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="119" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TvdOTlBO1PI/VcqXugO85cI/AAAAAAAABOU/IKZ4yPxoPXs/s320/Unknown.jpeg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">I remember leaving your flat in Pimlico,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Stepping out into the silent square;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">It was autumn, leaves in the gutter,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">A soft pink sun on the blank faces<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Of the tall Georgian row.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">The fenced park was locked<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">To those who lacked the key,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">So I walked around it,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Dawdling off to Victoria.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">The past is not another country<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">But another person who is you no more,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Evidenced by the slip of time</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In which I never saw you again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Larry Buttrose</span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-57246021244364260292015-07-14T18:18:00.000-07:002015-07-14T18:18:41.430-07:00LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND IN THE NIGHT GARDEN<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-1338970724899495059" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 578px;">
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Although the world’s major religions promise eternal life to those who faithfully follow their various laws and taboos, no-one can comprehend what eternal life would be like. This is because life’s finiteness, bounded irrevocably by death, is a key defining characteristic of what we call the human condition. But as regards the promises by religions of eternal life, all we know is that this life is all we know, and beyond it – unless we take seriously the imagery of floating on clouds playing harps, or an endless virgin orgy – we know nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="EN-US">But what would we do forever, anyway? Go fishing? Drink Moet? Fuck? Take ecstasy? Improve our putting? Tweet? Even those delights would not seem adequate to fill all those aeons which would be, truthfully, endless. </span><span lang="EN-US">Could we stand it, if beyond death we had anything like the attention spans and boredom thresholds we have in this life? </span><span lang="EN-US">“Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon,” quoth Unknown. The fact is we have no possible conception of what it would be like to live forever.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="EN-US">In many respects, too, curiously enough, death is our friend. It is ultimate release from all we have carried through life. For those whose lives have been marked by desperate poverty, chronic illness or other suffering – and that goes for a large proportion of the human population – death may be seen as a saviour, even redemption.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is a fact that our lives are painfully brief, and will remain for the foreseeable future (notwithstanding advances in medical science, and our inevitable physical melding with the machines of our own creation). We have barely left the womb when they are burying us in a box. Threescore and ten, and the rest is silence. It seems a pitifully short span, when all around us is the manifest immensity of space, and stars that have been burning for billions of our years. One is tempted to say that a longer span of life could enrich us, and bring us deeper wisdom as a race, but for the troubling thought that there is no fool like an old fool.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But eternity? Could we stand eternity? After all, could we live with others, for all time? As Sartre might have noted, that would not be eternal Heaven, but Hell. Even worse than that, we would have to live with ourselves forever, and how few of us enjoy spending time with that particular individual too? Yet still we long for an afterlife, for eternal life, deliverance from the grave, for Heaven, Valhalla, release from the karmic wheel. So, for what, really, are we longing?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Parents with young children get a tiny, nightly foretaste of what eternal life could be like, through a television show called <i>In The Night Garden. </i>It is the brainchild of a clever Englishman named Andrew Davenport, who also dreamed up its renowned precursor,<i>Tellytubbies</i>. The characters of <i>In The Night Garden</i> - headed by a bright blue Gumby-like creature with a lop-sided grin called Igglepiggle, a doll with a wild rainbow of hair and an inflatable skirt named Upsy-Daisy, an OCD rock-collecting pre-tech head called Makka-Pakka, and the trousers-losing cuddly trio the Tombliboos - inhabit a charming, twilit, woodland domain. In each episode they wander around, sublimely happy, thinking of nothing more taxing than whether it’s a “dancy day” or not. They snuggle, kiss, chatter on in squeaks and squawks of even fewer than 140 characters, and generally dream their time away. Even if something potentially untoward does happen, and the green puffer zeppelin called the Pinky Ponk that they are flying in strikes a tree, the worst thing that the kindly narrator Derek Jacobi ever utters is “Isn’t that a funny Pinky Ponk, bumping into that tree!”, and ends the episode with the trademark, “Isn’t that a pip!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The characters of <i>In The Night Garden</i> appear to possess little or no memory, and thrive in the bliss of an eternal present, puttering about their little patch of woodland singing, dancing, collecting stones, and engaged in other eternally repetitive acts. Memory, of course, is the enemy of eternal bliss, even eternal sanity. Because if we have no recollection of what we did half an hour ago, or even five minutes ago, every hour can be filled with discovery, forever renewed, which we might happily go on with, well, forever. None of the characters can speak very much – in fact most of them can hardly speak at all – which would place them under the age of three average human years. Three is the age at which “individuation”, or the sense of one’s self as separate from the world around, is usually thought to occur, so that in the case of the show’s characters, there is a sense that they remain linked to one another, and to their world, on a deep and abiding level. The sense of complete immersion in something greater than one’s self is woven deeply into the psyche of<i>In The Night Garden</i>: the world it evokes is a virtual reality unto itself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Curiously enough, we all lived the first few years of our lives in much the same way that Igglepiggle and Upsy-Daisy do, that is, taking each moment for what it is, something new and wonderful, and never looking back at the ever widening wake of hours, weeks, months and years that we leave behind us, which is the increasing habit of humans as we accrue our revolutions around the sun. In adulthood we retain little or no memory of those earliest years, yet despite this we know that we most surely lived them, and each and every moment of them as if it were a tiny eternity of its own. Could this be what eternal life might be like?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As we grow older, we tend to perplex ourselves with death more and more. This is not surprising: after all, its inevitable arrival becomes more imminent by the hour. But we do not worry ourselves so much, if at all, about who, where and what we were before we were born and lived, which is surely just as mysterious as when we die and live no more. If one deep mystery does not concern us, and we simply accept it - then why not the other? The suspicion, which is a fair one, that they are linked in some way – that is, our state pre-birth and post-death – should suggest to us that if nothing untoward appeared to be happening to us before we were born, why should we worry that it will after we die?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But it is this very uncertainty that religion, and all manner of hucksters of the soul and self, trade upon. But do we really need the abracadabra and hocus-pocus of religion to get us through the end of this life, that is coming for us all? Does any one of them truly know any more of death than any one of the rest of us? No matter what we tell our preachers, the answer, we know in our bones, is no.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As for God, a deity of some kind - who are we to know either way? We are puny specks of dust pumped up with very grand ideas. Could we ever know what or who is behind Everything? We are hardly down from the trees, still mass murder each other at will and celebrate it with pomp and spectacle, hardly know what day it is, and can't even make up our minds between a shiraz and a cabernet. In the immortal words of Sergeant Shultz, "I know nah-think!"</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Everyone before us has gone through death. And so shall we, each of us in our own singular circumstance and manner. And, should we arrive on the other side of this scrim of a world, in a pleasant patch of woodland where we happily collect cool, rounded stones until the end of time, then as the last ember of the cosmos sputters and burns out like a candle on the wick, perhaps we shall go on happily collecting our stones, beyond space, beyond time, all the while thinking, “Isn’t that a pip!”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-17576220469675097782015-07-09T20:25:00.000-07:002015-07-09T20:25:03.000-07:00THE LOTUS BLOSSOM DOG TAGS REVOLUTIONARY TOUR OF DUTY<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-1138508783370440574" itemprop="description articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 578px;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"It was late ‘67 now, even the most detailed maps didn’t reveal much any more; reading them was like trying to read the faces of the Vietnamese, and that was like trying to read the wind." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">- Michael Herr, Dispatches</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">RICHARD Nixon pronounced Viet-Nahm like a tropical wasting disease, rhymed with harm. Three decades after the fall of Saigon, for some there remains the background chatter of helicopters, and a Phantom jet’s jungle wake of spidery tendrils of white phosphorus, and napalm plumes in day-glo orange. Martin Sheen’s murmured ‘Saigon, Saigon, I was still in Saigon...’ may still haunt the odd scabby hotel room, but it’s Ho Chi Minh City now, and the only boom is an economic one. Having won the war, the Vietnamese are winning the peace: Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are growling freemarket tiger cubs, a business thriving on every corner. Vietnam has moved on while the US remains in the thrall of a recidivism born of little more than old Stallone-oid victory/revenge movies: a majority of Americans even believe the US won. The Vietnamese have seen the movies too but they know the difference between gross box office and history. But then many Americans believe our ancestors once saddled up dinosaurs - who better to believe that history is bunk? The only trouble, as they are discovering over again in Iraq, is that it isn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"They say that whatever you’re looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived." - from Christopher Hampton’s screen adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">THE first hours in any new country are precious, before your senses acquire the familiarity of a third glass of wine. On the taxi ride into Ho Chi Minh City we pass designer infant clothing boutiques and a profusion of billiard rooms. Electric cables are festooned down main streets like thick black vines, branching off everywhichway into shops and homes. People throng the streets on motorcycles, teenage girls texting on their Vespas, everyone so very young, courtesy the baby boom that followed what the Vietnamese call the American War.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The women make an immediate impression. Not that they are beautiful, which they are, like women anywhere. It’s their apparent ease and confidence, their freedom evident on the streets, dressed in their choice of pyjamas or high heels, jeans or mini-skirts. The only veil is a mask against air pollution, embroidered with a flower. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Subsequent enquiries confirm an emancipation stemming from factors such as the matrilineal tradition of ethnic groups going back to ancient times, the deeply-held views of Ho Chi Minh, and the frontline role women played in the American War. Who would dare to tell the guerrillas of the Mekong that their place was home cooking rice?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The initial impression is confirmed too of a vigourous, increasingly prosperous nation, an economic hybrid of big state-owned enterprises and a flourishing private business sector. There are candidates of only one party to elect, but that’s not so different from where we live. The US dollar and the Vietnamese dong are used interchangeably. The image of the revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh is on Vietnamese banknotes, Washington and other American revolutionaries on the US. The last dollar in my pocket bears an English queen and a kangaroo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"‘You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren’t interested.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">‘They don’t want Communism.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">‘They want rice,’ I said. ‘They don’t want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another. They don’t want our white skins around telling them what to do.’"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">- Graham Greene, The Quiet American</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">IN his 1955 classic - perhaps his greatest novel, for the tautness of the intertwined dramas of war and the struggle for love - Greene foreshadows the arguments which were to come. In the character of Pyle, the American who wasn’t ‘...one of those noisy bastards at the Continental. A quiet American’ he creates a symbol for the ingenuousness of US foreign policy, a policy as simplistic as the ideas of “York Harding”, the fictional intellectual guiding light for Pyle and his CIA fellow travellers towards creating a “third force”, post-colonial but non-Communist, in Vietnam. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Greene foreshadows too the final debacle, because the origins of the US intervention are not even the old goals of imperialism, of pillaged riches and subject peoples, but a policy cooked up by think-tanks in the fervid McCarthy era. The policy was “containment of Red China”, and prevention of the “Domino Effect”, in which one by one Asian nations were foreseen falling to Communism, menacing the white bastion of Australia and challenging America’s post-WW II Asian-Pacific imperium. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The US assumed the colonial mantle of the beaten French and did contrive a “third force”, the government of South Vietnam, but was always more a strategic notion than a viable entity. By the end of the whole dreadful mess, millions had fallen, but the dominoes didn’t. What did occur was the end to a century of colonialism, the reunification of Vietnam, and a social and economic carpe diem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Who killed those millions? It was Alden Pyle, the frighteningly quiet American whom the novel’s narrator, newspaperman Thomas Fowler, cannot even bring himself to hate because Pyle is wrong not for the wrong reasons, but in Fowler’s view, genuinely held ones - even though that makes him all the more dangerous. Fowler even forgives Pyle for taking his girlfriend, and it is not ultimately her, but the innocent blood on Pyle’s hands, which causes him to assent to Pyle’s murder.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><i>Fam Luc, painting in his hotel room near the Museum of Fine Art, Ho Chi Minh City</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">WE leave the aircon of the rosy-hued Miss Loi Guest House bound for the first item on Belle’s holiday “to see” list. Summer days in Ho Chi Minh City are up to 40 degrees, and after a half hour walk we’re grateful to escape the heat into the cool French colonial building housing the Museum of Fine Art. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We’re instantly impressed by the quality and diversity of work on show: paintings of streetscapes, bar scenes, portraits, nudes, women with children, workers in ricefields and fisherfolk dragging in nets. The influence of the modern masters is clear, particularly Picasso and Matisse, but there is also a Chinese influence, and originality. Other canvases look like war images, painted on hessian rice-bags, of women soldiers in the jungle, eating under canvas, combing each other’s hair, feeding infants with a rifle slung over their shoulder. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We are surprised to find that although this is obviously a major state-run museum, there are price-tags on the works, and even more surprised to learn all these works were not done by a number of artists, but that the gallery is staging a major retrospective of one of Vietnam’s modern masters, a former North Vietnamese official army artist, Fam Luc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We talk it over and return the next day and buy a small canvas, of brilliantly coloured flowers. The museum assistant asks if we would like to meet the artist, and phones him at his hotel around the corner. We meet and all do our best to converse in hopelessly broken French, and with his ebullient energy and charm Luc entertains us at drinks and dinners over the next couple of days. He never points it out, but we come to see the bullet holes in his canvases of women at war.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"Come home America. Come home from your dark country of racism, from your tragic, reckless adventure in Vietnam."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">- Dr Martin Luther King</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">OUTSIDE the War Remnants Museum there are US tanks and fighter planes, still menacing three decades on. There are bombs and rockets, cluster bombs and napalm canisters, and a Huey helicopter with a massive gun poking out of it. There is a last days of Rome sense to it, of a nation’s identity expressed in legions, of military might, and all to no avail. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Inside is far worse: galleries of photographs of napalmed children, farmers being led away to be shot, dead families with throats cut by US soldiers. There are testaments to the spraying of the defoliant chemical Agent Orange, of jars of deformed foetuses in formaldehyde which demand you to look even though so much in you begs to look away; and photographs of Elephant Man faces, of gnarled and twisted bodies doomed to walk on their hands, and long wards of the crippled which ask how could one people do this to another, deform its children for generations? A US serviceman smiles for the lens as he pumps Agent Orange from a drum daubed with “The Purple People Eater” into the tanks of a plane. It seems too monstrous, inhuman, a heinous felony. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">There are other galleries of foreign photographers of US forces under fire, mired in mud, wounded and dying, a horizon of Huey Valkyries across the sky, crimson flashes of shell-blasts, and American grunts in the field, young faces mingling fear, pain, fatigue, anger, contempt and bewilderment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Despite the horrors, one senses scant abiding bitterness from the Vietnamese who created this exhibition, just as one senses little in the populace streaming by outside the museum gates. There is profound sorrow here, but also the hope of reconciliation, as typified by one of the final exhibits, the military decorations of an American serviceman sent with a letter of apology.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"It is no accident that captured resistance fighters are almost invariably portrayed semi-nude, up to their middles in mud or roped together neck-to-neck, being marched off by grinning G.I. supermen. Vietnamese must be made to feel that they are racial inferiors with no right to national identity. For public consumption they are 'gooks', 'slopes' and 'dinks'."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">- Wilfred Burchett</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><i>Meeting Room, former Presidential Palace</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">THE former presidential palace, now called Reunification Palace, is a sixties modernist block-pile, but inside is cool, calm and spacious. The guidebooks jibe about lavish kitsch, but the cabinet rooms and meeting halls are way out beyond kitsch, captivating to the last outrageous chandelier. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">There’s also the Map Room, with colour-coded phones; the Gambling Room with wine barrel bar and decor a la The Party; the Movie Room with rows of red plush swivel chairs; and in the basement the banks of ancient telex machines and “combat bed” (single) for when it got too hot upstairs for President Thieu. There’s a closed Security Section with rows of dungeons, and a Shooting Gallery where Thieu peppered targets with his favourite handgun.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We emerge to the gates which two North Vietnamese tanks crashed through on 30th April 1975, the final climactic act of so many years of war. I ask an English-speaking Vietnamese whether the tank driver is famous. ‘Well-known yes, but famous, no. He lives like an ordinary man, with not much money. We are all proud of him and what he did, but he is one of us, nothing more.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"Ironically, by becoming an army of moles pitched against armies winged into battle by helicopters (the guerrillas) protracted the war to the point of persuading the United States that it was unwinnable."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">- Tom Mangold and John Penycate, The Tunnels of Cu Chi</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">WE join a bus tour to the Cao Dai sect temple in the shadow of Black Lady Mountain near the Cambodian border. The temple is famous for its outré, candy-hued temple decor and Illuminatus-style eye symbololgy. Melding Buddhism, Confucianism and Protestantism, Cao Dai was started in the 1920s by a Saigon clerk with a spiritualist bent. It maintained a private army during the French period (mentioned in The Quiet American) but now bears the trappings of quaint eccentricity, with Victor Hugo in its trinity of saints.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The bus next bumps us down to Cu Chi, to the tunnels where Vietnamese sheltered and fought during the French and American wars. More than 200 kilometres of tunnels were dug here, with subterranean command posts, hospitals, kitchens with disguised smoke chimneys, even uniform factories. Women gave birth underground, nursed infants. The Vietnamese endured the confined heat and darkness, scorpions and snakes, air attack and Tunnel Rats. The “Rats” were Americans and South Vietnamese sent to fight underground, themselves contending with disorientation, traps and ambush in the darkness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The visit begins with a shooting range where for US $1.30 a round, tourists can blast away with M1 carbines and AK47s and even heavy machine-guns. Sizeable red-faced young males line up, returning, as they say, “pumped”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The tunnels are tiny, but during the war were even tinier, with entrances little more than a square foot. Our group appears young and fit: it would be seemingly impossible for average Westerners to squeeze into such a small spaces, even enlarged for tourists as they are. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">A few paces in, light disappears totally. The darkness is disturbingly cramped, hot and airless, earth walls pressing in on the shoulders, a claustrophobic’s nightmare. Nor is there any going back: people coming behind block the tunnel entirely. One can only feel one’s way and move forward, calmly and even-paced. I inch crab-style towards a tiny lamp, orange glow illuminating just a few metres around it. The young Filipino woman in front calls to me not to take the right turn but to feel the way straight on, and I pass the instruction back to Belle. I hear her coaxing someone, and realise it is the Malaysian teenager behind her. The rest of his family decided not to come underground, but perhaps to “prove” himself, he has. I hear panic in his voice, but there are other voices behind his: he can’t even go back, and Belle, who had been in two minds about coming down anyway, is stuck with him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The Filipino warns of steps ahead and I ease myself down a black hole and we’re at nine metres, nearly thirty feet underground. The next lamp illuminates a scorpion, dead. The Filipino cautions about a low section but I’ve already hit my head. I feel around for my glasses while the Malaysian teenager whimpers and Belle tells him to hold onto her foot. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We appear to have lost contact with the group now, and the unpleasant notion of being lost suggests itself, but then there is light, strong light, literally at the end of the tunnel, and I emerge sweaty and grimy into a village house, the once secret exit. We help the exultant boy out, to cheers from his family. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Back on the bus I reflect upon the camaraderie which grew up instantly between us mere daytrippers down there, and how strong the bonds must have become between people who faced death together daily sheltering in those tiny spaces while the bombs fell all around, knowing a hit could entomb them all forever. </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__DvChe74AY0/S8J6KlEX4dI/AAAAAAAAAIw/T9Kb3N9r6PU/s1600/n633803791_2334276_1226408.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #6699cc; float: left; font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__DvChe74AY0/S8J6KlEX4dI/AAAAAAAAAIw/T9Kb3N9r6PU/s320/n633803791_2334276_1226408.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><i>Perfume River, Hue</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"War had blitzed into Hue during the Tet Offensive of 1968, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces taking the entire city except for a couple of US adviser compounds. What followed was a Stalingrad set-piece battle, which they lost after nearly a month’s horrendous fighting pitted against the best part of a marine division and two regiments of air cavalry." - Tim Page, Derailed in Uncle Ho’s Victory Garden</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">ACCORDING to photographer Tim Page - said to be the inspiration for the Conradian “harlequin” photo-jock in Apocalypse Now - the old imperial capital Hue is where “the women are prettiest, the food most delicious, the temples most interesting”. Hue lies on the Perfume River, named from the blossoms that drift down it. Outdoor cafes and beer gardens line its banks now, but the bullet scars in the citadel walls tell another story, as do the street vendors hawking American dog dags: name, number, blood group, religion. The city fell during the Tet Offensive that swept South Vietnam in early 1968. Its speed and ferociousness stunned the Americans, as did its planning and preparation, which had gone undetected. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">In Hue, the North Vietnamese held out for more than three weeks. The holy of holies in Saigon, the US Embassy, was hit and American lives lost. US confidence was shattered, with only a drawn-out endgame of epic destructiveness to come as Nixon fumbled, fulminated and hissy-fitted after a “peace with honour” that was always so much smoke through his fingers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"By May 1968, US military-political strategies in Vietnam had been driven into bankruptcy... To fail against armed forces developed from peasant guerrillas, with an army of well over a million superbly armed troops at your disposal, plus the world’s most modern air force and unlimited artillery, is a failure of monumental proportions." - Wilfred Burchett</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We travel up Highway 1 on a bus headed for the old Demilitarised Zone and Quang Tri province where some of the heaviest fighting and bombing of the war took place - literally erasing the town of Quang Tri from the map - and the equally contested Highway 9, Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the former US base at Khe Sanh.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">‘Who besides the Americans fought at Khe Sanh?’ I ask the tour guide, Tien. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">‘Jimmy Barnes,’ he deadpans. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Though obviously a set-piece crack for DMZ tourists, it underscores the fiction of the Cold Chisel pub-rock anthem, and the macho Vietnam vet anti-hero who “left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">President Lyndon Johnson was obsessed with Khe Sanh and made his commanders swear to hold it, declaring he didn’t want no “Dinbinfoo”. This was an allusion to the battle of Dien Bien Phu fourteen years before, where the French had made a decisive stand - also at an airstrip surrounded by mountain ranges providing ready cover for artillery - and were defeated. As the French marched out in 1954, Eisenhower’s America stepped into the beach, installing expatriate Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon and cancelling scheduled reunifying national elections which Diem would have lost to Ho Chi Minh. Using the pretext of the faked Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the US landed troops at Da Nang in 1965, and the American War began in earnest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Five thousand Americans endured a ten-week siege at Khe Sanh during 1968, as US aircraft dropped tens of thousands of tonnes of bombs on the mountains ringing it, but the feared North Vietnamese ground assault never came. The siege was merely a diversionary action for the real thing, the Tet Offensive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"Khe Sanh was a very bad place to be then, but the airstrip was the worst place in the world... If you were waiting there to be taken out, there was nothing you could do but curl up in the trench and try to make yourself small, and if you were coming in on the plane, there was nothing you could do, nothing at all."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">- Michael Herr, Dispatches</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Some people speak of a feeling in the DMZ still, of hurt from the war. There is something of that, but my first impression is of a countryside that looks almost if the war never happened here. It’s hard to believe that just three decades ago Agent Orange and carpet bombing rendered much of this fertile region like the surface of Mars. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">‘I lost my friends, my house, my village, all gone,’ Tien reflects, on the bus microphone. ‘The Americans thought they came here to protect us, but my people died like dogs. People around here still hate Americans.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Highway 9 passes rebuilt towns and villages. There are forests of eucalypts and bamboo, vegetable gardens and fields of rice, and pretty houses in a green-clad mountain landscape much like south-east Queensland. The Ho Chi Minh Trail has been sealed and trucks the new prosperity, while Khe Sanh is a coffee plantation, robusta beans from the blood red earth. It has a small museum, bunkers and a couple of old helicopters. The rest nature has reclaimed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">‘When we returned to our land after the war we had to search out mines with bamboo sticks,’ Tien says later. ‘So many mines, no-one helped us, we did it ourselves. The mines are still around here. Last year a lady died in the ricefields. Two weeks ago a little boy lost both legs.’ He looks out as we wind down through hills of forest regrowth, heading back to Hue. ‘Fifty-eight thousand US dead. We lost three million.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">THE abundant ricefields of the Red River delta in the north long made the region tempting to the Chinese. They ruled for around a thousand years until the Vietnamese under Ngo Quyen won a decisive victory in 938, luring the junks of the Chinese fleet into the estuary of the Bach Dang River, before forcing them back at low tide onto huge wooden stakes set into the river bed. It is a quirk of history that the tactics were repeated more than three centuries later when in 1288 Vietnamese leader Tran Hung Dao enticed the fleet of Mongol invader Kublai Khan into the same river estuary, and again beat the enemy ships back onto stakes set into the river bed: Those who fail to learn the lessons of history. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Eight hundred years later pointed stakes were again used to powerful effect, villagers adapting jungle animal traps to kill and incapacitate US troops, with estimates of them accounting for up to two percent of American losses. The technological difference between the two sides could not have been clearer. With its massive air power the US threatened to bomb the Vietnamese “back into the Stone Age”. It used everything short of nuclear weaponry, which it considered, to impose its will on a poor nation of 20 million, mainly rice farmers, and in every respect it failed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Richard Nixon later admitted that never before had a nation enjoyed such an advantage militarily over its adversary as the US did over the Vietnamese. Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, who reported the war from the North Vietnamese side, expressed it succinctly: “Never in the history of any nation had so many with so much been arrayed against so few with so little.” Former Secretary of State Robert McNamara admitted the US defeat reflected a basic lack of understanding of the history and culture of the Vietnamese. Their victory has even been characterised as that of the human brain over machines.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">HANOI is an attractive city of lakes and boulevards, of the twisting, tamarind-shaded alleys of the old city, the Opera and elegant Metropole Hotel in the French quarter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">As in Ho Chi Minh City there is evident rising affluence and a profusion of upmarket shops, among them places selling wartime propaganda posters. Originals can sell for up to US $200, often to American collectors. We purchase a reproduction print of women guerrillas moving with rifles at the ready through a lake of pink lotus blossoms. Their unabashed beauty, and that of the lotuses, belies a deadly purpose. The title has been translated as The Southern Guerrilla Women Are Full Of Guts. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We ask the sales assistant, dressed in fashionable clothes and trendy spectacles, to see a poster of Ho Chi Minh, and she places several in front of us. As we look, her manner changes. ‘He is our uncle,’ she says quietly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Women like her fought on the battlefields, petite women who had worn make-up and fashionable clothes. Now they do so again, and if needed would no doubt fight again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"The sorrow of war inside a soldier's heart was in a strange way similar to the sorrow of love. It was a kind of nostalgia, like the immense sadness of a world at dusk. It was a sadness, a missing, a pain which could send one soaring back into the past." - Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">IN his famous novel, North Vietnamese army veteran Bao Ninh rewinds the life of Kien, a foot-soldier who survives the war only to contend with the peace. The jump-cut narrative of The Sorrow of War evokes astonishing horror and pathos, ghosts of a dreamscape jungle and subliminal eroticism, building to an overwhelmingly powerful climax. Critics have placed it among war classics such as All Quiet on the Western Front, War and Peace, Goodbye to All That, The Naked and the Dead, and Dispatches. Some believe it may even be the finest. Its hunted depths alone make it a unique work, echoing the human extremes of the conflict. It is also a book about lost love, and about writing; and it is about Hanoi, and its people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"At this moment the city was so calm he could practically hear the clouds blow over the rooftops. He thought of them as part of his own life being blown away in wispy sections, leaving vast, open areas of complete emptiness, as in his own life."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">- Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">WE make contact with Fam Luc and meet up at his house, and three of his collectors join us. One speaks excellent English and translates as we catch up with all the things half understood and left unsaid back in Ho Chi Minh City. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We learn more of Luc’s life story. He is a descendent of the famous poet Nguyen Du. Following his war years as an artist in the North Vietnamese Army, his marriage broke up after peace. He met a Frenchwoman who loved his paintings, and collected many of them; the trysts that ensued were conducted in secret to avoid the eyes of then-disapproving officialdom. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">One day Luc returned to his room and discovered an envelope waiting. It contained a key to a substantial Hanoi villa, in payment for his works. The couple married and she took him to live in Paris, but he returned home alone after a month. Nowadays the house itself is not quite so large as it was. When the city authorities widened the road to the airport they simply cut off the fronts of houses in the way, including Luc’s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We go on to a restaurant by the lake, a massive earth-floored place like an industrial shed with a row of woks in a far corner. The lake off the end of our table is moonlit, literally alive with catfish. Luc orders, and large bowls of boiled river snails are brought out - to my taste like garlic-fried gristle - followed by freshwater shrimp, and a deep-fried whole catfish. The coup de grace is a basket of tiny birds, deep-fried whole. I do my best to pick off a miniscule wing, trying not to offend our host. Luc bites a head off and chews, and Belle, game as ever, bites in as well. I keep my head down and reach for the prawns. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Our fellow diners, all of them Luc’s collectors, are in many ways typical of the new Vietnam. One is a millionaire, another a professor of literature and Party official, the third a Hanoi real estate agent. Very different, one might have thought, but they dine, chat and joke happily together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">We down beers and start toasting the republic, the people, and Ho Chi Minh. I have a copy of his Prison Diary, bought that day at the Temple of Literature, and read out ‘Moonlight’, as requested by the professor of literature, pausing for each line to be translated into Vietnamese:</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">To the window I go and look at the moonshine.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Through the bars the moon gazes at the poet.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">WE travel from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay for an overnight stay upon an oxymoron, a luxury junk. The Bay is brochure-famous and World Heritage listed for its thousands of tiny rocky islands jutting from turquoise depths. To cruise it is truly to enter another world, or would be, were it not for all the other luxury vessels entering that other world too in a junk traffic jam at sea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Following a day exploring caves and swimming, after dinner the dozen of us tourists on board assemble on the top deck where the costumed crew sing us Vietnamese folk songs amid the jumbled sun lounges. Then they start encouraging/coercing everyone to perform. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The honeymooning Gold Coasters open with a none-too-rehearsed Ba Ba Black Sheep. If the Vietnamese happened to have heard that Australia once rode on the sheep’s back, one can only hope they don’t end up thinking this is our national song. The 12 year old son of the hypervigilant American psychiatrist steps up to the plate with a snappy soul tune about how the private individual may well come to enjoy the fruits of the free enterprise system through hard work and following her/his dream. A Singaporese businessman apologises that his republic doesn’t possess a national song, and sings a couple of lines of Take Me Home Country Road before forgetting the lyrics altogether and resuming his Vietnamese girl. I get through a verse and chorus of And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda before a Brisbane family rounds out the night with the original, and everyone, the Vietnamese, Americans, Singaporese and ourselves, all join in. Later I attempt to explain to Woody Allen the psychiatrist the national cultural significance of a sheep thief who commits suicide by jumping into a pond to escape arrest by police, without much success.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">A street hawker sells me a small book called "Christmas Bombing: Dien Bien Phu in the Air". It is a forensically detached account of the saturation bombing of Hanoi by B52 strategic aircraft in the closing days of 1972. The Paris Peace Talks had all but delivered an American withdrawal, but under pressure from the South Vietnamese over conditions, Nixon ordered the now infamous Christmas bombing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><i>Tailplane, downed B52, B52 Victories Museum, Hanoi</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Before his death in 1969, Ho Chi Minh had warned: 'US armed forces are set to be defeated but they will only admit defeat after their loss in the skies of Hanoi'. The raids by nearly 200 B52s were intended to bludgeon the North Vietnamese into accepting terms. They began on 18 December 1972, raining down high explosives from 10 kilometres up. By the time Nixon ended it eleven days later, the people of Hanoi had been subjected to some of the most intense bombing ever conducted, killing and maiming thousands and inflicting severe damage onto homes, hospitals and schools. The US faced international outrage for what was widely seen as a singular act of bastardry, with Nixon and Kissinger called war criminals. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">But according to Christmas Bombing author Luu Trong Lan, the outcry did not stop the bombing campaign, nor was it any development in negotiations. By his account, the Vietnamese had learned to counteract the radar jamming with which the Americans had expected to neutralise their anti-aircraft missiles. As a result, he wrote, 34 B52s were shot down, a massive loss in materiel, crews and prestige, crippling the campaign and even threatening the B52 nuclear air capability against the Soviets. The US accounting is far fewer, but in this regard one has to balance the candid and unadorned prose of a respected former senior officer against a scheming liar who fled office to escape criminal impeachment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"Many observers... found the style of the mausoleum to be too heavy and ponderous, in total contrast to the whimsical humour and unpretentious character of its occupant who was lying in state inside, hands crossed and dressed in a simple Sun Yat-sen tunic." - William J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">WE set off early hoping to beat the Hanoi crowds, but they have beaten us and we join a queue of thousands of Vietnamese in the sweltering morning heat. When we file into the mausoleum half an hour later, all is deeply quiet, not a cough, a whisper. A guard gestures with gloved hand for me to remove my sunglasses, and as I do I realise I’ve left my spectacles back with our bag at security. With viewers all kept well back, I can’t make out Ho Chi Minh’s features. All I can see is his alabaster white face, tunic, and the solemn-faced phalanx of guards in white with rifles and fixed bayonets surrounding him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Back outside we walk past a grandiose palace built for the French governor of Indochina, which Ho Chi Minh later refused saying: “What would I do with all those rooms?” As we visit the simple stilt house where he chose to live his final decade, I ask Belle what his face looked like. "Peaceful. With the tiniest hint of a smile."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">OUR final day in Hanoi is very still and humid. As night falls a thunderstorm breaks over the city, the thunderclaps close overhead and very intense. One can only wonder how it must have felt when they were the bursts of bombs. Then the rain comes sheeting down. Below our window in Ma May street I see people everywhere running for cover.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"The spirit of Hanoi is strongest by night, even stronger in the rain."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">THERE is a clutch of hotels down near the Saigon River famous from books and old TV news footage: the Continental, the Caravelle and the Rex, and further down, the Grand and the Majestic. The hotels have roof garden bars which were popular with war correspondents, whence they could keep an eye on the city below but stay out of range of tossed grenades. Now you can choose from cocktails including a B52, a Good Morning Vietnam, a Saigon Saigon and even a Hemingway (Bacardi, Maraschino liqueur, grapefruit juice - whatever would Papa have said?). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">On our last evening back in Ho Chi Minh City we sit at a table at the Rex overlooking the central Lam Son Square. Above the frenetic traffic, small birds sweep around the square in swirling spirals, much like the swifts in the same hypnotic circuits above the piazzas of Europe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The Aussies downing beers at the adjoining table are old war vets on a tour. What would they make of Vietnam now, with its shopping malls, fashions and youth culture? What was it they fought here for again? Something about stopping Communism, tumbling dominoes? What was it for that their mates died then?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Nothing, is the answer. Those 500 young Australians died for nothing. Or more precisely, for the foreign policy of the Menzies, Holt, Gorton and McMahon governments, which amounts to the same thing. All the Way with LBJ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">What was it all about? The question hangs unspoken in the air as the birds sweep past on their silent rounds.</span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-55591664185371925522015-05-12T21:27:00.000-07:002015-05-12T21:27:18.146-07:00THOU ART (AGAIN)<br />
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<i>This tickler notwithstanding, the 56th Venice Biennale seems much like the last one, in which case I'm recycling my poem about that too.</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">THOU ART</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A boa of serious gaiety settles upon the shoulders of the island<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As the artists of the world convene for the Biennale,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Suited, pashmina-ed, be-holy-jeaned,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Pink mohawk punks wheeling Gucci luggage,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">All a world apart from the common or garden tourist<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If by the trim of their beard or the cut of their jibe,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Striding atop high-horse heels from Prada to Prado,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Hastening o'er the cobblestones towards importance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They convene at certain outdoor tables<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In a certain jigsaw of piazzas,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To drink down their spirits and suck on their fags,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Discourse with a weary intensity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On the weary world in all its woes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Quoting tracts which might or might not<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Be their own, and so of themselves connote<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Self-conscious quotations of quotations,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In an argot that gyres towards dizziness,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When I say art I mean business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Over the bridges the hordes come and go,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Behold the canals of Canaletto!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Over Campari sodas and ten euro cognacs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They may denounce racism and sexism,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Injustice, imperialism, post-colonialism,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To the last dwindling penny of their per diems,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The last soupçon of their gauche caviar,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Then retreat, all too often alone, to their hotel,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Its star rating an exact and authentic reflection<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of their place in the firmament of art.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In the morning they will recall few if any<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of their ejaculations of the night before,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Not that it matters so very much, and work<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On their bowel, and a polite avoidance of breakfast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Aboard the vaporetto down to Giardini<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They may strike up a conversation with a critic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Whom they suddenly hope some day just may<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Smooth their path a tad, if not invite them<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">One sweet summer for a stay in their villa<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In an unpronounceable corner of Sardinia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The afternoon is a Sargasso Sea drift from pavilion</span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To pavilion of this Olympics cum trade fair of art<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Through the heaving chest and scolding tears<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of another performance giving voice to the voiceless,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Another stupendously expensive, purpose-made,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Site-specific installation decrying greed,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Another panel discussion on capitalism and its evils,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Denouncing history, denouncing meaning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And meaninglessness, again, and yet again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They may saunter past a massive mound of rubble,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Squint at a squid of tree trunks and rope,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A squall of words down a long white wall,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A bird of prey with a royal Land Rover<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Tight in its claws, and be left to wonder,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Helplessly, angrily, poignantly, tragically<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Why again, again, their own work is not quite<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Among these select, this creme that floats so easily<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Atop the creme de la creme like an outrageous<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Vienna coffee, a Liberace of floss,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To wit, an entire building, and not just any building,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But a building with their nation's flag aloft,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The national pavilion of their own people,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Given over to them, and them above all others:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">All this - and the Biennale of Venice!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When the rain comes it is perfect rain, expensive rain,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Venetian rain, and it patters down exclusively<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Upon the heads of the artists of the world,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And their relatives, spouses and partners<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Under common law, their friends, foes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And rivals alike, critics, students and theoreticians,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Enthusiasts and hobbyists, television presenters<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Who pronounce their ars as doubleyous,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Camp followers, dilettantes and dandy poseurs,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Idle gawkers, stray tourists grouped and ungrouped,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And the lone model in the mini skirt who steps</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Like a Bond Girl from an idealised water taxi,</span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As if her arrival were itself a catalogue performance,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But who is instead taken aside and politely asked<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For the ticket of admission she does not have;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The rain falls and falls yet, upon all equally now,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Just as gently, as insistently, just as wet,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Flecking scarves, miring boot heels in cobbled mud;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Umbrellas of varying qualities are hoisted<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Against the heavens, and the queues at pavilions<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">May dramatically shorten, or suddenly lengthen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Outside the pavilion that is the momentary buzz,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In dogged defiance of the nagging elements<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">That have always been the enemy of art.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Over the bridges the art lovers come and go,</span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Hungry for a naughty Hirst or Serrano show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They may linger in the cafe in careless conversation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">With a Roman gamin who hates Rome because nothing works,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Overhearing the tidal rise and fall of the singsong likes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of the endless Americans, and the Dutch<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In their Double Dutch, idly remarking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The French in their heroic pessimism,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Brits in all their bravura,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Spanish in their melancholia,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Italians in all their cigarettes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Note the nod, the shrug, the derisive snicker<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As works are deconstructed over fat brioches,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And marvel that none of all of any of this<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Means the merest thing, other than that<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Everything was forever until it was no more,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">That this moment as lived now<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Will never come again, but sink irrevocably<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Into the eternal murk, like Venice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">With the fall of evening they may repair to the Via Garibaldi<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Another night in the bar, the ristorante, trattoria, bistro,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Where they cash their chips for grilled Venetian fish,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Rendering unto the Doge that which is the Doge's,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Glimpsing again the gamin holding court<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A Madonna on the rocks and such too is her drink,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A vast parabolic sweep of her cigarette in hand,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The artists of the world at her lovely sullied feet<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">All of them masterfully assembled by a despised old master<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Into a loving canvas of all that is vanity and frailty,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In all their human stain, and smoke-smudged beauty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In their hotel room again, alone yet again,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Encrypted in its Woolworth rococo,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Trying not to picture the gamin atremble in the arms<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of him or hersoever, they may shower meditatively,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A little tipsily, perchance a little drunkenly,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And for the most fleeting of moments feel almost happy,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And wonder, again most fleetingly, is that not the project of life,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And, too, the purpose of art, that is, if it has one at all,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Be it an attempt to shock the bourgeois from their seats,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Or decorate their houses, offices and city squares,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A passing pleasure for the eye and mind, if that is a question at all,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Critically defensibly worth even two minutes at a panel forum,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A question so narratively grand and historically conditional,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Fluted and curlicued, that it is not worth the asking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Though they may then consider further, even more leisurely,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Whether they are content in this life they have made,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And conclude that the question has no rational answer,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Before retiring to the salad crisp sheets,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Where before switching out the bedside lamp<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They may observe a peeling of paint in the ceiling,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And how it almost constitutes a shape, or pattern,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So that they spend some moments breaking out the camera<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To photograph it, their Venetian ready-made:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The last thing before closing their eyes, they delete<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The photographs, and eye the glass of water<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> One night table, wondering if their wish is to drink it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Over the empty bridges the rats now come and go,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Squeaking of Michelangelo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">At last, even artists sleep. As night settles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On Cimitero di San Michele, the isle of the dead,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The cypress groves recede an ever deeper green<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And the forest of crosses grows;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The waters of the archipelago lap at the island's hem<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Oblivious to the heeled whore of Venice<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Across the lagoon, murmuring a prayer for all<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Who sail within, a sigh for their nighted souls,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Murmuring of the gentle deliverance of oblivion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1" style="margin-left: 63.8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For all, from the hard mystery of art.</span></div>
<br />
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/10/venice-biennale-2015-review-56th-sarah-lucas-xu-bing-chiharu-shiota<br />
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<br />Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-90692082745363703152015-05-07T16:47:00.003-07:002015-05-11T16:37:24.134-07:00THE DOUBLE CHIN GLOBULAR CLUSTER<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vhs7zJJyCWc/VUv5Hc1UCsI/AAAAAAAABMk/DNqgIeRgca0/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vhs7zJJyCWc/VUv5Hc1UCsI/AAAAAAAABMk/DNqgIeRgca0/s400/Unknown.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">With the shocking discovery of the Long
Ear Nebula,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">The Sagging Eyelid Galaxy and the Double
Chin Globular Cluster,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Astronomers were forced to concede<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">That the heavens indeed constituted the
face of God,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Even if religious leaders for their part then<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Had to concede the divine visage was not as they had foreseen,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">And that given its age already, and the
time taken for light<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">To reach the Earth, the deity in question </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Was most likely </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">not</span><span style="font-size: large;"> merely old </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And decrepit, but very long
dead,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Thus scoring a cosmic win-win and lose-lose all in one,</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">And leaving all in the dark, and rather alone.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">- Larry Buttrose</span></span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-15410212634419073432015-03-30T18:39:00.001-07:002015-03-30T18:45:24.517-07:00SPONGE CAKE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OCcs3ronkVs/VRn6ruEvddI/AAAAAAAABKw/yejj84UdXcc/s1600/Iced_Victoria_Sponge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OCcs3ronkVs/VRn6ruEvddI/AAAAAAAABKw/yejj84UdXcc/s1600/Iced_Victoria_Sponge.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Soon after they met</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">He dubbed her Sponge Cake,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Saying she could absorb his bodily fluids <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">And only ever taste better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Later, it was his frustration and fury,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">His fists and blows and god only knows<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">That she suffered, and tried to absorb,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Silently sponging the hurt <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">While keeping the smile taut<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">In a crusting of sugar icing,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Which only cracked, so bewilderingly,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">When she was a thousand miles gone<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">And left him to lie to no-one else</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But police, and himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">- Larry Buttrose</span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-10735045834746945502015-03-08T15:27:00.001-07:002015-03-08T15:51:06.131-07:00BEACHBUM ON GREENE<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-67qxT5Hnh9w/VPzMwZlQpQI/AAAAAAAABJs/UKL87P05EvM/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-67qxT5Hnh9w/VPzMwZlQpQI/AAAAAAAABJs/UKL87P05EvM/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 18px;">"Greene's 'ways of escape' included opium dens, whorehouses and the Catholic Church. ('I had to find religion', said Greene to a friend who asked him about his well publicised conversion, 'to measure my evil against.')… in November 1957, Greene and his married mistress Catherine Walston went on holiday in Havana. 'We had been to the Shanghai, we had watched without much interest Superman's perform</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; line-height: 18px;">ance with a mulatto girl (as uninspiring as a dutiful husband's), we had lost a little at roulette, we had fed at the Floridita, smoked marijuana, and seen a lesbian performance at the Blue Moon', recounted Greene in his memoirs. 'So now we asked our driver if he could provide us with a little cocaine.' All the while Greene gathered intel on the Fidelistas for his SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] contacts in Her Majesty's government, which was supplying arms to Batista." From <i>Potions of the Caribbean</i> by Beachbum Berry.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-25884798810024018112015-03-01T15:53:00.000-08:002015-03-01T15:53:22.290-08:0019 THINKS I think I thought<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NSrTqVT7MNY/VPOmPwx8DcI/AAAAAAAABI0/pyUMrdLIpS8/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NSrTqVT7MNY/VPOmPwx8DcI/AAAAAAAABI0/pyUMrdLIpS8/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">1. I am alive, a
member of a species we call humanity, and living on a planet we call Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">2. This planet is
in a system orbiting around a star we call the Sun, and part of a galaxy or
system of stars we call the Milky Way. According to human science, there are
some hundred billion galaxies in the totality of heavenly bodies we call the
Universe, although this is presumably largely an approximation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">3. Until recently
the theory of the Big Bang had become the orthodox explanation for the creation
of the Universe. But this always seemed a rather “beginning-middle-and end”
human-styled story, and now this is being questioned by others of multiple
universes or multiverses, and of an “eternal universe”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">4. While an
“eternal universe” is possibly more comforting to our minds, we have no way of
comprehending “eternal”, either in temporal or spatial terms: merely trying to
imagine it gives us a headache. In the end, though, be it Big Bang, Multiverse
or Eternal Universe, or (most likely) Other, it will probably have precious
little bearing upon our own individual existence(s).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">5. One thing we
do know is that all of us will die, and all too soon as well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">6. What death
will mean for each of us, however, is impossible to know before it happens, and
very possibly not after it either.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">7. We do know
that once dead, our bodies will eventually break down into the atoms of which
they were composed, said to have originated from the deaths of stars we call
supernovas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">8. While we know
we will die and our bodies break down, what we do not know is what will happen
to our consciousness upon death. Most human religions or faiths are predicated
on some version of “life after death”, an immortal part or “soul” living on,
this holding out the prospect of “resurrection” of some kind, usually of the
individual, and presumably with their own consciousness and memories intact.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">9. Religions
generally centre upon an all powerful Creator, who made our world and all
things in it, and the Universe itself, who would oversee our destiny beyond the
grave, in eternal life. Given an eternity of time as we humans (fail to)
comprehend it, this state of being is usually reduced to our clean-scrubbed and
robed selves strolling peacefully down well-lit avenues, with much benign mist
and the playing of harps.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">10. That we have
no human means of imagining eternity, much less comprehending what we would actually
do with it if it became ours to live, could potentially be a barrier to an
acceptance of religious belief, though for many people this does not appear to
be the case, their apparent solution being not to think about it. In that regard,
religious believers would appear to go to their graves very much like
non-believers, and those who hold that in the end we are all compost anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">11. Those who do
not subscribe to religious views may believe that Creator-centred religions are
little more than a fond hope of deliverance by the theistic equivalent of our
children’s Santa Claus, and hold that upon death there is nothing, and that our
consciousness, memories and personality are all extinguished with our bodily
life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">12. If there is
nothing after death, which we could imagine as a darkness (or possibly light)
going on “forever”, then it would seem to many people that their lives are futile,
a few decades of eating and defecating, having sex, fretting over sex, fretting
over love and love not had, worrying about money, moving the furniture around
the living room and stacking and unstacking the dishwasher, bounded on either
side by a nothingness beyond comprehension.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">13. The 8<sup>th</sup>
Century English monk, the Venerable Bede, put this eloquently as our mere
moment of life being akin to a sparrow flitting from the night into a lit hall
and then straight out another window on the far side, back out into the night.
Thus this life can be seen as a painfully brief moment of illumination, stark
and dazzling. But, if there is an illumination, then of what, and about what?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">14. The
existentialism of Sartre and Beckett confronts human existence as being
pointless, and all our often hard wrought choices, individual, moral and ethical,
being essentially meaningless too. But what then motivates us, and particularly
those drawn to such views, to get up each day, and go on with their life, trying
to be a “good person”, when their existence will end all too soon and “mean”
nothing anyway?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">15. We may seek,
and find, meaning in love, in our children, in family, or in creative pursuits
such as art, writing, music. Some may find it in playing sport or barracking
for a sports team, or even writing plays about the meaninglessness of life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">16. Whatever the
case, all must find meaning in some form somewhere, somehow, or else the dark
matter of pointlessness will weigh down on us, and depression, nihilistic
disengagement, even suicide may be the result.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">17. But what is
that meaning? If we are dead in a few decades and our having existed at all
almost certainly entirely forgotten within a generation or two, what is the
point, indeed? Even the celebrated are forgotten, unless they are as renowned
as Shakespeare and Beethoven. But what is 500 years, even, in the time of the
Earth, and much less the stars, than the merest blink, less than a single
wingbeat of the sparrow of the Venerable Bede? And does the memory of their
name and work mean anything to them now, returned as they are to dust, to atoms?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;">18. In his
classic novel of 1930, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Last and First Men</i>,
English philosopher and author Olaf Stapledon fictionally surveyed the coming
two billion years of human history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In it,
humans evolve through 18 different species, of which we are the sadly all-too-primitive
First. There is no god nor gods behind the creation of the universe in this
account, and the highest aspirations for us as humans are not worship nor ritual,
but ever remain the creative arts, literature, music and art, and what he calls
“Racial Awakening” the telepathic psychic communion of all living humans (the
Internet might perhaps be seen as a very primitive precursor of this). As well
as finding meaning through creativity, in personal terms we may find it in love
and sex, family and friendship, and charitable acts of altruism. This, it could
be noted, is similar to the ending of Monty Python’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Meaning of Life</i>, in which it is suggested that the meaning is: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">"Try
and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then,
get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people
of all creeds and nations." <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">19. At the conclusion of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Last And First Men – </i>humanity it seems is doomed when the Sun
becomes a Red Giant, and the solar system faces incineration – the ultimate
human species, the Eighteenth, possesses the ability to live forever, and is effectively
immortal. But, after a long lifespan, typically of some hundreds of thousands
of years, nearly all choose to die. Presumably, then, the beautiful and hideous
wilds of eternity are still too much even for humans of such evolutionary
advancement. And, at the very end, with the solar system and the entire human
race doomed, we close the two billion year human story with the simple
statement: “It is good to have been Man.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">20.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> In my
beginning is my end -</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Drive your cart and plough over the bones of the dead – I am
here, Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
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Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-84255041102197467672015-02-17T17:58:00.001-08:002015-02-17T17:59:10.764-08:00APPROXIMATE SPOUSES<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9IKvMSGJ7lA/VOPw-07g8BI/AAAAAAAABIU/M2tAVBKu8Lk/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-02-18%2Bat%2B12.54.08%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9IKvMSGJ7lA/VOPw-07g8BI/AAAAAAAABIU/M2tAVBKu8Lk/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-02-18%2Bat%2B12.54.08%2BPM.png" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Oh the poignancy!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Oh the bitter-sweet and sour!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Measured out by the spoonful,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The minute, to the dread hour.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In the window,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Working, scheming,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In the pub,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Joking, screeching,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In the bed,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Snorting, dreaming,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">And all of it so very swell,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It fills the time so well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Now the faces have faded,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">All the eyes are dead,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The feet are gone <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">That here did tread,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Fresh faces pace the streets,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The halls of the same houses,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Take out the approximate garbage<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-large;">For their approximate spouses.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Larry Buttrose</span></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p>Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-5418102480990289802015-02-15T16:04:00.003-08:002015-02-15T16:04:48.357-08:00SO THAT'S WHAT A REAL JOURNALIST IS LIKE <br />
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Vale my friend Brian Johnstone<br />
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<a href="https://www.newmatilda.com/2015/02/10/life-brian-right-so-thats-what-real-journalist">https://www.newmatilda.com/2015/02/10/life-brian-right-so-thats-what-real-journalist</a><br />
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<br />Larry Buttrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10547951540936488599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649330945127350139.post-7051301247264937942015-01-04T16:40:00.000-08:002015-01-04T16:40:04.700-08:00THE FUTILITY OF EXISTENCE AND THE POODLE<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">A friend recently asked what is the book I always go back to… a good question, I thought. I answered, de Botton's "The Consolations of Philosophy". In addition to the human wisdom it surveys, it is so wonderfully wry and droll. "1788: Arthur Schopenhauer is born in Danzig. In later years, he looks back on the event with regret: 'We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.' 'Human existence must be a kind of error,' he specif</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">ies, 'it may be said of it, 'It is bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens.'"... "1853: His fame spreads across Europe… He receives fan mail. A woman from Silesia sends him a long, suggestive poem. A man from Bohemia writes to tell him he places a wreath on his portrait every day… Philosophically-minded Frankfurters buy poodles [his dog of choice] in homage."</span><br />
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