Music (October)

Music is about dancing and singing, inspiration and longing. Combinations of sounds relay emotions, signal otherworlds, assist memory. After that, definitions become theoretical, psychological, analogical. This October, listening to Tim Stevens play his ‘I’ll Tell You Later’, we hear how Saturday becomes Sunday. Saturday is improvisational again, a range of activities that may be slow or busy, reflective or frenetic. This includes touches of the hymn, formal and rich and deep, that holds come Sunday. The Spaniards have a saying, “It’s Monday in the world”, and music exists for that reason, making bearable the hard fact that life goes on.  

Day (October)

On the train this morning I read old New Yorkers. 5 October 2015 contains an article about an American poet people could describe as a know-all. He’s a self-styled avant-gardist, which means his purpose is to shock and offend people. This is a fairly easy method of art: inspiring people takes more talent and time. Between Dennis and Westgarth Stations I read that he wrote ‘Fidget’, “an account of practically every movement he made on Bloomsday – June 16^th – in 1997.” Waking up, swallowing, walking, and obviously fidgeting were all described into a tape recorder, then transcribed. Joyce used his imagination.

Camry (October)

Camry (Kan-Muri) is Japanese for “beyond compare”, which is the truth for the Toyota sedan that now stands ruined and gold-leafed on the familiar corner of McKean and Michael streets, North Fitzroy. How the Camry became camry may have been pictured by street-cams, but no one seems to know why. Was it driven into the flowering gum, or dumped there with forethought? This October it was sighted every day, no number plates but key still in the ignition. Now artists have gone for gold. Soon it will be an icon. There will be protests against removal of this Yellow Peril.

Beaut (October)

Thence introduced by the Norman French, beaut, to express the perception of the inward and outward goodness and form sovereign in creation, pleasure to the senses:  a rainy river heard from a bridge, taste of apples, the loose-leaved trees of October. Hence beautiful, a word invented for Scripture by Tyndale, though beware of Pharisees who appear outwardly beautiful. Whence Olsen, his antipodean acclaim of you beaut country, where the you beauts go, admitting despite themselves the excellence in all things seen and unseen: multi-coloured blare of harbour, firm tread of beach and stone platform, the gold blossoming trees of October.

Epithet (October)

This October the Australian Government is in the unusual historical circumstance of being run by two Prime Ministers at once. PM1 enjoys the following epithets, none listed on a ballot paper: Truffles, Fizza, The Double Bay Socialist, Turdbull, Talcum Malcolm, Turbo, Goldman Sachs, Sugar Bun, Turncoat, The Silvertail, and The Prince of Point Piper. PM2 has considerably more epithets than PM1, none of which will appear on his epitaph: The Mad Monk, Phoney Tony, Abbo, The Captain, Clownshoes, Ferengi, Tones, Toxic, Attack Dog, Nope Nope Nope, Thug, Abort, Budgie Smuggler, Shirtfronter, Handflapper, The Suppository of All Wisdom, and Sir Pository.

Suspense (October)

The Punch and Judy Show is almost over. Punch has prowled the stage, hitting with a big stick and springing unpleasant surprises. He keeps to monosyllables. Ugly is what the audience expects. Judy carries the baby. The baby has a robust Constitution and a future. Judy keeps to the script. It’s October, and this time Punch has gone too far. He will go before the hearing in November, but will he accept the verdict? Punch says he’ll think about it. He’ll keep everyone in suspense. Suspense was never his forte. The curtain will fall with Judy still holding the baby.

Generation (October)

I saw the best minds of my generation employed with sanity,

well-fed, dragging themselves through grevillea streets 

looking for the latest Bob, anti-hipsters turning the 

long-playing record connection to the starry dynamo 

machinery of their bungalow, who wide-eyed and hi there

sat up soaking in superelectical Blonde on Blonde, who

bared their brains to Bob’s nasal references staggering

drawled out ironies, who stayed up all night October in 

submarine light of stale Victoria Bitter and Drum

roll-your-owns, listening to the crack of doom on their

personal hydrogen jukebox, who talked continuously

hours and had never even seen the Brooklyn Bridge.

Disappearing (October)

Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind, on the radio waves of childhood. Go lightly from the ledge, babe. Go lightly on the ground, as friendships stayed or strayed through confusion and glory of youth. Heading out for the East Coast Lord knows I’ve paid some dues gettin’ through. One October meanwhile, deep in adulthood, in another part of town me and a couple of friends are driving around, and no idea what kind of shit is about to go down. Buckets of moonbeams in my hand. You got all the love, honey baby, I can stand.

Wonder (October)

“The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.” (Ralph W. Sockman) The more we know about the flower, the more its independent existence confronts us, wonder including everything we know we still don’t know about the flower. The more we know of humans the more wondrous still is how we have our being, the more challenging the contradictions of being human. Human time, with its Wednesday and its October, the desire for order contracts our wonder. When, it is observed, complete wonder takes over even as we abandon the strictures of our knowledge of flowers, humans…