Letter from New York

From Sea to Shining Coast

2012-01-30T22:40:00.017-05:00

When you're alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown
When you've got worries,
All the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, down town - from "Downtown", sung by Petula Clark, lyrics Tony Hatch 1964

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea! - from "America the Beautiful", Katharine Lee Bates 1894

When I'm alone and lonely, when I'm depressed, out-of-sorts, anxious or blue, I don't need to listen to Petula Clark singing "Downtown". I don't even need to go - "Downtown".

I just need to tune in to Piers Morgan on CNN.

So therapeutic is Mr Piers Morgan, that I am prepared to wait until 9:00 at night to get my fix. And then, all annoyances, outrages, petty gripes, all things negative - disappear - drowned into insignificance by Piers and his in-depth look at American society and politics.

Take today for instance. Everything was going down. Going "south" as they say in America. Do things "go north" in OZ? Whatever.

They were certainly going south for me today. All was lost. I was going to have to blot out my entire life with the oblivion of SLEEP.

And then perchance I turned on the telly and for some bizarre reason - I certainly hadn't programmed the TV to do so - CNN came full-blast into my living room, anchored by none other than Piers Morgan, America's token Englishman.

It is times like this that I am SO GLAD I am not English. Imagine being represented by such a token as Piers.

Piers Morgan - I suspect my fellow Australians are ignorant in bliss of this person. But we New Yorkers see him on our TVs - and regardless of nationality, birth, race, socioeconomic status - we shudder.

Tonight Piers excelled himself.

For starters, or as we say in America, "for appetizers", this evening Piers had as a guest some old guy by the name of "Welch". I use the last name only because the ticker only told me "Welch". Along side Mr Welch was a younger person, though not really "young" - a woman, whose name wasn't on the ticker. I suspect she was a "minder". Or perhaps a "carer". She didn't speak. Perhaps she was a blow-up doll. I mention her only because she was there and therefore I assume she had a ROLE, though what it was, was not apparent.

East Coast Patriot

Piers was rattling on in his English accent which is becoming more pronounced by the sound-bite, about President Obama taking off Al Green's "Let's Stay Together".

Then, in a rare moment of impartial anchor-ism, Piers ventured to compare Obama's rendition of "Let's Stay Together" with Mitt Romney singing "America the Beautiful".

And, stating the obvious, Piers said that Obama's Al Green impersonation was better that Romney's "America the Beautiful".

Well we knew that already. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for the old guy - the Welch fellow. The camera panned onto him to see his reaction to Piers' uncharacteristic display of certitude. Welch was not a happy camper. But still I felt for him, Welch that is. After all, I'm old myself and I probably like "Walzing Matilda" renditions better than "Stormy Weather". Well I don't. But I could understand it if someone did.

"Wasn't Obama better?" Piers asked, looking as is his wont, INNOCENT? "Well it depends," said Mr Welch, and his toy doll nodded in empathy. "One song is better than the other - 'America the Beautiful'" is a better song."

"Oh," countered Piers, in an uncharacteristic display of independence, "It all depends if you live on the coast or not; is that it?"

At which I did a delayed reaction thing. "Huh?"

Ah yes, he must have been referring to the coasts in "From sea to shining sea".

Or am I giving Piers more credit than he deserves?

Is such a thing possible?

Stay tuned!

Yes to scrolls, no to codex

2012-01-24T22:08:00.001-05:00

A codex (Latin caudex for "trunk of a tree" or block of wood, book; plural codices) is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings (sheets of paper or vellum in multiples of two which are folded and stitched through) typically bound together and given a cover. - from Codex Wikipedia

I cannot count the times I've had to listen to bus or train people - people who I've never met, people whose opinion I haven't sought and people who I haven't even made eye contact with - say something along the lines of:

"I see you are reading a Kindle. I love to read but I would never read a book on a Kindle; I like the smell of books the feel of the paper I just couldn't read a Kindle".

I've use a semi-colon to punctuate for readability, but it is invariably breathed rather than spoken, in one continuous contiguous rollout of words.

I usually answer with a sentence, because at least on public transport I'm quite a nice person. But lately I'm more likely to not to reply with a nod or a grunt, burying my face in my Kindle.

So yesterday I answered with, "Well yes, they said that about scrolls when books came in. They said, 'But I love the feel of scrolls, I could NEVER like a book; it wouldn't be the same thing. I don't like the thought of PAGES. I just HAVE to SCROLL.'" She looked back at at me blankly. I think she thought I was speaking in a foreign language. Either that or I that was from another planet. As for the latter, I am inclined to agree ...

Talking about books ... well about language, yesterday someone commented on one of my posts - Tooth, Justice and the American Way - which, as you can imagine, was about American dentists. I quote verbatim,

It is the first time I visit Antalya with my family and my brother got accident and had a pain in his tooth. He is not able to sleep whole night due to pain. I am here looking for dentist who can cure his tooth ache. If anyone knows any professional dentist who also knows English well, please suggest me. Thanks.

Now I understand that it is pretty pretty pretty hard to write in a foreign language. But why on earth would anyone whose grasp of the English language is so poor that,

a: they didn't understand the post, and
b: they can't even construct a sentence in English that is even just halfway correct

want a dentist who speaks English "well".

And in any case, where the hell is Antalya? See I AM acclimating to the 'American way"!

The Invisible People of New York

2012-01-21T15:46:00.019-05:00

It would be almost unbelievable, if history did not record the tragic fact that men have gone to war and cut each other's throats because they could not agree as to what was to become of them after their throats were cut." - from "The Fried Rice God"

Classification has been defined by Mayr as "The arrangement of entities in a hierarchical series of nested classes, in which similar or related classes at one hierarchical level are combined comprehensively into more inclusive classes at the next higher level." A class is defined as "a collection of similar entities", where the similarity consists of the entities having attributes or traits in common. - from Biological Classification - Wikipedia

I have discovered a-yet-to-be-classified species - a species which can be found in New York City, though I suspect there are variants in Paris and Moscow.

I strongly suspect that the species I have discovered remained unclassified for so long because all of its members are invisible.

So I shall call them "The Invisibles", though I suspect that some bright young thing will come up with a better-sounding nomenclature, most probably derived from Latin.

A group of invisible New Yorkers

Here is a photo of a group of Invisibles outside the Lincoln Center. They are humanoids, and should they not be invisible, they probably would be indistinguishable in outward appearance to other New Yorkers.

Besides being invisible, the Invisibles are unlike other New Yorkers in that they are quite unable to speak. In fact no sound issues at all from their vocal cords, though I suspect one could hear their footfalls were they to come close when walking outside. Walking outside is something they rarely do, as their main function in life is too sit quietly at home or in some quiet place, holding a phone to their ears. The phone can be of any type. It can be a cell, or a cordless hand-held VoIP or landline.

Speaking of cordless hand-helds, I actually know a man in Melbourne, Australia, who does not know the difference between a cell phone and a cordless landline phone. He actually thinks they are one and the same because the are both "mobile" in the sense of being capable of being carried around. Unfortunately though, this man is NOT invisible.

Invisible New Yorkers on Vacation in New Hampshire

Back to the Invisibles. You might think they would be anti-social solitary beings. This is in fact far from the truth. Many of them are married, or are living in blended families. Some may even have pets.

Although you cannot see them, you CAN detect their existence. All you need to do is get onto a bus or subway car in New York, and listen to those very visible New Yorkers talking to the Invisibles on their cell-phones.

It is quite remarkable, as regular visible New Yorkers can talk for hours on end, first to one Invisible and then to another. Talking on cell phones is the New Yorkers' preferred method of passing the time while commuting.

The Invisibles are POPULAR. If they were not invisible you'd see them in old high school year books, with captions such as, "Miss Popularity", and "Girl Most Likely to Find a Husband". Invisibles have qualities that New Yorkers do not possess but which they find eminently desirable in others.

Invisibles are patient; they listen diligently. They NEVER interrupt. They never voice an opinion. They NEVER talk about themselves - what they have done, how they feel - but are content to listen to every minute detail of the visible friend's life.

Invisible New Yorker with Umbrella

There remain some parts of the Invisibles' culture and environment that I do not yet understand, and because of their nature, will never know. For example, do they eat? I imagine that they don't as they would have no time to shop for food or cook it. They couldn't even order-in, as their phone lines are constantly busy. Do they hold political or religious views? I expect not. I would imagine they would camelion-like, take on the views of whoever they are currently listening to.

Nearly all New Yorkers have at least on Invisible friend. I know this because almost every time I hear a New Yorker talking on a cell phone, there are no pauses; there are no phrases such as "Really" or "Did you?" Or "What do YOU think?" New Yorkers never answer whoever is on the other end of the phone, and this certainly must be because the listener has nothing whatsoever to say.

Sometimes a New Yorker will make a mistake and call another visible New Yorker. This has happened to me a number of times. They'll just forget and when I actually get to talk - and it DOES happen that a visible New Yorker can make a mistake and pause for a nana-second, perhaps someone distracts them, or they have an urge to cough - when I actually SPEAK, I can almost hear the astonishment emanating from the other end of the line.

At such times the visible New Yorker is speechless. The callee has actually attempted to speak. There is stunned silence. But only for a second - undeterred, the visible New Yorker carries on talking as if nothing has happened. My words have had no effect.

I am thinking of nominating the Invisibles as a group, for the television channel "NY1" "New Yorker of the Week" series. To date this has been dominated by visibles - teachers, philanthropist, firemen and such.

It is about time the Invisibles are recognized. What would we do without them?

Just imagine the chaos if everybody here talked at once, if no one listened to anyone else. And if people actually LISTENED!

Blowing Monkeys out of Trees

2012-01-14T22:30:00.012-05:00

The Map and the Territory(French: La carte et le territoire), is a novel by French author Michel Houellebecq. The narrative revolves around a successful artist, and involves a fictional murder of Houellebecq. from Wikipedia entry on The Map and the Territory

I admit it's getting better
A little better all the time (It can't get no worse)
"Getting Better", Lennon, a hundred years ago

fragrant feral front-yard fresias (©Tim Juliff)

It is possible that it is because I've been reading a bit to much of the French writer Houellebecq lately. After all, he is described in the press as the enfant terrible of French literature - can it get any worse?

But perhaps it has something to do with reaching an uncertain age. Whatever it is, it is bizarre.

My life is changing. Yes I know it happens to us all, but I just did not expect to be spending time blowing monkeys out of trees, looking for New York taxis with surprised eyebrows, and listening to an ugly old man yelling into his cell phone on the M15 bus about how he wanted to play with a South Carolina's woman's breasts.

If you haven't read any Houellebecq and want to find out about him, I suggest you read Tender and Terrible: The Vulgar Beauty of Michel Houellebecq in the Harvard Book Review. It might turn you off. Or turn you on. Houellebecq writes a lot about sex and death. And although I enjoyed his The Elementary Particles, I found the sex passages to be a bit overwhelming.

Not as overwhelming however, as the conversation I could not help over-hearing on the M15 bus in New York last week. I could only hear one side of it, but that was enough. In any case I think the woman on the other end of the man's cell phone wasn't saying much. It being more a monologue than a conversation.

I must point out here that the man in question is blind. He's a bit of a regular on the M15, and noticeable because of his weight (he weights about 280 lb) and because he is ALWAYS talking on his phone. Usually I can ignore him, but last week he was particularly loud, and glancing up from my Kindle I could see the woman opposite me looking stunned. His conversation had become a public sort of thing.

The fact that the man is blind is relevant in that it raised a number of questions. His conversation was with a woman he had not met in person and who lived far away. He hadn't been able to see a photo of his "intended" and he HAD sent her a photo of himself. How did he know if it was flattering? Could a photo of him BE flattering? Unlike the South Carolina woman, I had the misfortune of being able to see him.

I heard him tell his intended that he was 48. Yeah, sure. Whatever.

New York Cab With Eyebrows

I put him at around 60. He was asking Ms South Carolina a number of questions, loudly enough for the whole bus to hear. And not being able to see his fellow New Yorkers - known for their unshockability - looking down, looking out the window, looking anywhere but in his direction, he continued on, becoming visibly (yes visibly) more sexually excited. No mean feat when you are an overweight male over sixty, seated and dressed in loose-fitting clothes.

"I want to make love to you," he yelled into the phone. Obviously there was silence at the other end of the line which he mistook as indicating she hadn't heard him. "I want to make love to you," he repeated. And then, apparently thinking she didn't understand, "I want to have sex with you."

Getting no response, or at least giving her no time to respond, he asked, "How big are your breasts?" She must have answered as his excitement grew. "Can I play with them? I want to play with them!" regressing into what he must have been like when he was a demanding child wanting his sixth Big Mac.

On and on it went. He asked her could he visit, and if he visited, would she pay for his trip. At that I looked back up at the woman opposite. She looked shocked.

He was still talking when the bus arrived at his stop. As he alighted my eyes met those of the woman opposite. "Disgusting!" she commented. I nodded agreement.

And went back to my Houellebecq.

The world was sane again.

And as for the monkeys in the tree and the New York cabs with eyebrows, well you are just going to have to

Stay Tuned.

Butter, Onions, and the Margaret Thatcher Syndrome

2012-01-07T21:54:00.025-05:00

"Why not have my bedroom as the main room? After all, I spend most of my days in bed; I most often eat in bed, watching cartoons on FOX TV; it's not as if I throw dinner parties." Indeed, bits of toast and scraps of mortadella were strewn on the sheets, which were stained with wine and cigarette burns in places. - from "The Map and the Territory" by Michel Houellebecq

At the beginning of the movie, "The Iron Lady", Margaret Thatcher is shown as an elderly woman buying butter and a newspaper in what we in New York would call a bodega - in Australia and perhaps the UK - a "milk bar". Thatcher, played excellently by Meryl Streep, queries the cost.

I'd forgotten all about "The Iron Lady". The movie, that is. Who could forget Thatcher? Or perhaps I should ask, "Who can remember her?" Old people, I suppose ...

Surprisingly, I remembered the movie - because after all I saw it over a week ago, and the attention span of us baby-boomers is fast approaching zero.

I remembered it today. I was in my local supermarket. When my turn in the checkout-line came, I was charged nine dollars something for a generic brand of unsalted butter, one onion and four Idaho potatoes. I paid, and was checking the printed receipt.

The checkout dude, complete with facial piercings and manicured eyebrows, tried to rush me on. Perhaps it was time for his meal-break. Behind me in the line, an elderly gentleman was looking into his basket, puzzled at what appeared to be a bagel. The checkout dude was snapping at me, "It's $9.20!" I think he thought that people as old as me couldn't read.

OK already yet, I was thinking to myself as I moved rapidly away from his line of vision. No way did I want to cause a scene. I don't fight battles I cannot win!

Then it hit me. An epiphany of sorts. In my time as a professional woman I have more than infrequently been called, in a derogatory tone, "Mrs. Thatcher". And here I was acting just like the woman - well at least like the woman as portrayed by Ms Streep.

Yikes!

I shuddered.

The day had not begun well. In the morning I'd woken from a nightmare where all the men I've ever known (in the biblical sense) had merged into one very scary male. The dream had been vivid, and now I come to think of it, very clever and imaginative. Well of course imaginative.

This chameleon, chimera, whatever, spoke a mix of Oxford English, accented German English, Strine and American. Truly an abomination I can assure you. What's more, he was argumentative, mellow, practical, sensitive, autistic, well-proportioned, youthful, over-weight, intelligent, social, slightly stupid, all at the same time.

Quelle horreur! I awoke in fright. I'd been arguing with him because he wasn't here and wasn't not here all at the same time.

There's only so much a gal can take.

And now the Thatcher thing.

Am I truly, Thatcher-like, losing it? Is my old friend Paul right when he tells me that we baby-boomers are dropping like flies, and so why are the governments worried about looking after an ever-increasing elderly population?

Am I doomed to be a person who queries the price of onions? Will Rick Santorum become the president of the United States? And if so, will I have to flee this island of Manhattan?

If I were under thirty, I'd say, "Whatever!"

As it is, all I can say is,

Stay tuned!

Whatever Happened to the Bourgeoisie?

2012-01-05T21:38:00.013-05:00

... they were still young enough to laugh about it - the preparation for that epicurean, peaceful, refined but unsnobbish happiness that Western society offered the representatives of its middle-to-upper classes in middle age - from The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
Where working men defend their rights,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill! - from the folk song " I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night", adapted by Earl Robinson

This one has me stumped.

Somehow, sometime, when I wasn't looking, America got rid of its working-class. Completely, permanently, absolutely. Linguistically.

"Working-Class Men", UK

Where have they gone, all those working-class guys and gals? They aren't unemployed because they don't exist, and you can't even begin to look for work if you aren't anywhere.

If I were a Mayan I might think they disappeared when our solar system turned upside down - putting by the way, Australia in its rightful place - on top.

But the working-class in America disappeared well before this year, 2012. So it isn't a Mayan thing.

Is it purely an American thing? I don't THINK so. I was listening (I can't bear to look at him) America CNN's token Englishman Piers Morgan, and I am pretty sure it was last year, when he made a more than usually ridiculous statement. He was talking to a guest, can't remember who, and he said something which was completely over-the-top. Had it not been Piers, I may have found what he said, innovative - provocative even. But unfortunately it WAS Piers and so it was merely simplistic.

The rich, he tried to explain to a dumbfounded politician, had to pay higher taxes PROPORTIONALLY because - wait for it - the class system in the UK means that you earn more money because of your dad.

WHEREAS, he deigned to explain, in America you earn more because you work harder - nothing to do with mom and dad.

An innovative idea perhaps to be included in Economics 101 at a community college.

Of course, Piers was talking of the "middle-class" and how the US budget couldn't be balanced because the middle-class didn't make enough money to pay enough taxes. I half expected him to get out a cake and make a pie-chart out of it. Perhaps he did. I seem to remember flicking the off-switch ...

Working-Class Washing, UK

When I was growing up in what is now on the top of the solar system, which in itself is weird as how can the solar system have a "top"? - the middle-class roughly equated with the bourgeoisie. The middle-class people were people from families where the male wage earner was a professional, the family owned their own mortgage and the kids, especially the males, received a university education. They also tended to live in brick veneer houses and were socially conservative.

Working-class people - when I was growing up - were people from families where the main wage-earner was a blue-collar worker. Maybe an abattoir employee or a railway linesman. Or a brick layer (now called "working in construction") or a shop assistant (now called "an associate in retail").

Uber-Class Dwelling, UK

You could more or less work out what you were. Upper-class was old money, royalty. Working-class was blue-collar workers. And middle-class was - well all those people in between.

Maybe that's how it still is everywhere else in the world. But not here in the USA. Here we only have "the middle-class". There's no "upper", "lower" "working". The middle-class here is anyone who earns a salary or is out of work. Sort of the 99% to coin a phrase. What the other, the 1% is, I do not know and would be VERY interested to find out.

Someone, and I suspect Mr Murdoch (tongue in cheek), has done a very clever linguistic piece of social engineering.

We no longer have the poor, the working-class, the under-class.

We just have the middle-class. We are all poor and unhappy and the same, and isn't that just what democracy is all about?

Who would have thunk that the class struggle à la Marx, would have been put to rest by the careful and hardly subtle use of linguistics?

And while I'm on the subject of linguistics, what's with this "uber" stuff. "It's oh so uber , sort of thing. What happened to "very"?

Maybe we'll have a "uber class"?

Maybe we already have.

Yep, I'm pretty sure the members of the uber-class are alive and well ... And living on Wall Street.

Unfriended by a Friendless Person Already!

2011-12-28T20:57:00.021-05:00

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends, - Lennon McCartney 1967

Oh, Village Voice nothing
New Yorker nothing
Sing Out and Folkways nothing
Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg
nothing, nothing, nothing - from The Nothing Song, the Fugs

It's nearly the end of a very eventful year. And what more of a fitting way for it to end than by being unfriended by a "Facebook friend".

It's not very nice to be unfriended. For starters, "unfriend" isn't even a word, let alone a verb! Having an ungrammatical thing done to one is disconcerting to say the least.

But all that aside, it's like being back in the schoolyard, behind the shelter-sheds in the early 1960s. Chewy-on-your-boot-I'm-not-your-friend-anymore sort of thing. But in the case of Facebook friends, you aren't even given a chance to say, "ASIF-I-care-I-never-liked-you-anyway-dickhead."

In Facebook, the unfriender has the last word.

A bit of me sort of wishes I'd unfriended this particular person first, several years ago in fact. But truth be told, I felt sorry for him, and like others thought I could help him. You see, his major gripe with the world appears to be that he has trouble making friends. And a bunch of us have been trying to give the guy some pointers.

But really, now I come to think about it, being able to make friends is not a teachable skill. We would have been better off steering him to Dale Carnegie's "How to Make Friends and Influence People".

I'm having a lateral moment! "Carnegie" - "Carnage". I just remembered - I was walking to my bus tonight in Manhattan and the movie "Carnage" was playing at a cinema near my stop. Its name was displayed on those neon tile things they put up on the outside of cinemas.

There was an out-of-town couple behind me while I was waiting at the lights. They seemed pretty knowledgeable and were obviously in New York to see a concert. I could hear them talking about Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, which was to be played at Carnegie Hall this evening by The New York String Orchestra. I was impressed! Until ...

"We'll never find it!" the woman was saying. I was HOPING she'd ask me "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" so that I could answer, "Practice!" but her husband suddenly shouted out, "It's here. We are here already darling. Look! (pointing at the cinema's tile display) C-A-R-N-A-G-E! Carnegie!!!"

End-of-Lateral_Moment and I kid you not.

Back to my tale. Yep, I was unfriended by a friendless person.

If I were a born-in-the-USA American I'd say "How ironic!"

But as I am not, I will just expand out in English words and say, "WTF!"

As Judge Judy often quotes, "No good deed goes unpunished".

I embedded the Fugs "Nothing Song" above, not just because parts of it epitomize the unfriender, but because of its humour. The Fugs, a New York band, a favorite of mine and of my brother.

So favorite, that their song "How Sweet I Roam'd From Field to Field" was chosen to be sung at his remembrance ceremony at Bear Gully, Australia, this month. I was fortunate enough to be able to fly out to attend.

As Tim's sons stood on the rocks at Bear Gully and sand William Blake's poem to the music of The Fugs I looked back. Only the immediate family were actually on the rocks. Behind us was a hill. The hill was literally covered with Tim's friends. They'd come to remember him.

Real friends.

Non-cyber friends.

My friends

ObamaCare and the Bloating Think Cake

2011-12-24T01:55:00.007-05:00

It wouldn't be cool or professional to count the eradication of smallpox as part of the modern condition..." From Saturday by Ian McEwan

This is the most extreme example that I can recall of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor. Bernie Sanders (US Senator from Vermont) regarding the bailout of the U.S. financial system - 2008

St Kilda, Melbourne, OZ

I've recently come back from OZ. "OZ", Australian for Australia.

I spent just under three weeks there, and seasoned New Yorker that I am, I succumbed. Succumed to the appreciation - as I always do - of a caring state.

And even when I haven't just come back from OZ, it always puzzles me that the terms "ObamaCare" and "Nanny State" are meant to be derogatory. For my Australian readers, "ObamaCare" is a pejorative term refering to the healthcare legislation proposed by President Barack Obama.

What's so bad about a society that cares for the unfortunate, the disadvantaged? What is so bad about progress? The reasons people are unhappy with change has been analyzed and explained far better than I could ever write. But the difference in "care" between the two societies, Australian and American never fails to astound me.

Vietnamese Restaurant Menu, Victoria Street, Melbourne

In On Not Being Fiona, just before I left New York in November this year, I wrote. "There's something about a place, any place, when you are about to leave it."

Too true, but now it is Australia that I have left.

Upon returning, people, New Yorkers, asked me the usual questions. This time, one of the most bizarre was, "What's the food like there?" Are you kidding? I thought - but was too polite to answer. Melbourne must have some of the best restaurants in the world. And though you can get nearly every possible cuisine in New York, there's nothing like Victoria Street Richmond in Melbourne, where Vietnamese restaurants occupy almost every inch of real-estate. So what if the spelling on the menus isn't the best; the food it to die for.

In my last post on leaving New York I wrote,

"The place, usually a city, appears to magically take on its best features, its quintessential being. And I wonder, "why am I leaving?" This is especially so when the city is New York."

And so when two weeks ago when I left Australia, I wondered, "What am I doing, leaving the place of my birth, my education, my friends, my family?"

Usually the period of adjustment, moving from OZ to the US takes a day or two. This time, it's taken longer. I wonder why?

Is it because I'm older? Because of changes in my family? Because of the threat of having Newt Gingrich as president of the US? I survived Bush; why not Gingrich? Well I know the answer to that ... but you know what I mean.

Whatever.

I'm here now, and Australia is too fast becoming a memory.

A memory.

A memory in need of refreshing.

On Not Being Fiona

2011-11-12T00:35:00.018-05:00

As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world. Pearl S Buck

There's something about a place, any place, when you are about to leave it.

Well, for me, anyway.

The place, usually a city, appears to magically take on its best features, its quintessential being. And I wonder, "why am I leaving?" This is especially so when the city is New York.

It happens to me every time I go from one place to another. Even if I'm not going for long, I suddenly appreciate fully where I am, and feel a sense of loss even before losing.

And it happened again, so predictably, this evening.

I was meeting my friend Babs at David Burke's "Fishtail" restaurant on 62nd. "Sixty Second between Park and Lex, see you there," Babs had told me just over twenty four hours ago. And so at 5:45pm precise I set off. No bus, so I caught a cab.

While the cab navigated the traffic on Park Avenue, I stared out the window as if seeing New York for the first time. The up-market, old-money Upper East Side apartments with their gloved gray-uniformed doormen. Bell-hops. Straight out of a sixties Hitchcock. The yellow cabs. The rush and buzz that is New York.

Wandering into "Fishtail" I saw Babs waiting at the bar. "There's my friend," I explained to the rather obsequious greeter who was querying whether or not I had a reservation. Without waiting for his permission I started toward Babs, but my path was blocked by a young waitress, who I was later to learn, was from New Jersey.

Yeah, so New Jersey has an image problem. I know that, but I was not prepared for what happened next.

Suddenly her hair was on fire. She had long free-flowing brown hair and it had been ignited by one of the many obligatory candles - except in this case they were square not round - it is de rigueur in Manhattan to be as different as possible. "If we are going to have candles, darhling, let them be square," I could imagine the Fishtail's interior decorator demanding.

The air smelt of singed hair, and while most diners were oblivious, Mr Obsequious-Greeter was hot on the waitress's tail. Not worrying about her well-being, more concerned with the restaurant's ambience, he ushered the singed girl away.

United Babs and I then found our table, perused the menu, ordered cocktails, and relaxed after out hard working-week.

We were talking about lipsticks (yes, really) when suddenly the conversation turned upon the topic of a "Fiona". "Who's called Fiona? So Australian," I was rattling on. "Are there Fionas in America?"

"I hope not," said Babs.

The meal was delightful. The wine was from New Zealand. We talked of work, of men, of relatives, of OZ. And then along came Miss-Singed-Hair.

"Where are you from?" she demanded, New York style. We looked at each other. "Ur, we are from, hey where are we from?" I asked Babs, not quite understanding what the singed waitress was asking.

"You mean because of our accents?" asked Babs.

But no. The waitress explained she meant were we just come from work, the theater, shopping? "From work," we told her.

Then Ms Singed had something else to say.

"I wish I had an accent!" "You do," we replied in unison with another waitress who had just joined us. "Where are you from?"

Miss Wishing-I-Had-an-Accent looked downcast and muttered sub-audibly, "New Jersey".

Being kind folk we pretended we hadn't heard her and the conversation moved on.

"Are you married?" Wishing-I-Had-an-Accent asked us. Out of the blue.

We both looked confused. Were we? Well yes. But sort of, not what one thinks of, understands as, "married".

"Well yes," said Babs uncertainly.

"Maybe you are married to each other?" asked Ms Wishing-I-Had-an-Accent.

We were stunned. Why would she think this? We explained that we were not and had no desire to be.

"It's just that a lot of people who come here, are," Ms Wishing-I-Had-an-Accent explained.

I was starting to think she really WAS from New Jersey when Babs, ever the social facilitator asked about her hair and the conversation drifted away onto more mundane matters.

Our Kate-Babs dinner then resumed, and after an hour or so during which we had to keep explaining to the wine waiter that no, we did NOT drink Chardonnay, we left and caught our cabs.

The night was clear. The streets were busy. It was neither too hot, or too cold.

It was just right.

It was, New York.

I waited for the elevator to my apartment in a New York state of mind.

As I said, there's something about a place, any place, when you are about to leave it.

Cell Phone Technology and New York Manners - Can We Take This Offline?

2011-10-30T21:09:00.016-04:00

... there is no conversation that is agreeable; there is no modesty, no attention to one another. They talk very loud, very fast and altogether. If they ask you a question, before you can utter three words of your answer they will break out upon you again and talk away. - from "The Works of John Adams" Aug 23, 1774, as cited in The New York Times Were New Yorkers Always Seen as Fast-Talking and Rude?

I happened to click on one of those online support chat links last week. I was re-installing "Quicken" and had a couple of questions.

The little chat window popped up and I asked my question. Several seconds later, a reply came back.

Yasim: Hi, my name is Yasim. Thank you for contacting Quicken, please allow me a moment to read your question.

and a few seconds later,

Yasim: Hi Kate, how are you?

Me: It doesn't really matter how I am, but seeing as you ask, I am frustrated with your product!

There was a long pause. I started to time it, but became bored and clicked the 'x' to close the window.

What's with these people? What do they mean, "how are you?" Obviously you are not on top of the world if you have been forced to "talk" to a faceless someone, only possibly human, using a virtual window on a computer. Enough said!

But on reflection I felt sorry for Yasim. He or she was obviously in India and is a very nice person and the "How are you" was auto-generated, beyond his control. Still. I've lived in New York for over a decade. I had little patience even before I came here. And now I've acclimated. So you can imagine ...

New Yorkers Communicating

Yes my patience threshold is in the negative.

New Yorkers rude? I don't THINK so. We just don't have time for small-talk.

In fact, real New Yorkers don't have time for ANY talk, other than their own.

Take my New York friend Stella. She called me the other day on my home phone. I'd just walked in the door and was coughing and sneezing and feeling quite unwell.

After listening to her for 20 minutes I said, "I'm sorry, but I am feeing quite unwell. Can we take this off-line?"

"Can we take this off-line?" is New-York-speak for "I don't want to listen to this anymore".

But Stella hadn't heard me, or if she had, it hadn't registered, and she kept on with a soliloquy worthy of Hamlet in its length.

"Maybe if I died she'd notice and stop" I was thinking, when there was a pause. If you wait long enough, even a New Yorker will run out of breath. "I am feeling really ill; I need to go to bed!" I croaked. And was heard. There is a god after all I thought as I collapsed on the sofa.

Color-coordinated New Yorker on Cell Phone

When I first came to New York I was intrigued with how New Yorkers, when they called, would when you picked up start rattling on with whatever thoughts were in their mind. I'd spend minutes trying to decipher what appeared to be streams of consciousness which would make James Joyce appear succinct.

Eventually I'd but in with, "Who IS this?"

Inevitably the response would come back, "It's me!"

Technology has cured many ills and improved our quality of life no end. We had Guttenberg and his printing press, the spinning jenny revolutionizing the fabric industry. Dr Salk and his polio vaccine. And for the past several years, smart phones and their visual caller-id function.

Life is good. No longer need we ask, "Who are you?"

There it is, the caller's name clearly pixelled on one's iPhone or Android cell phone.

Yep, technology has an answer for everything. Or if it hasn't, it's only a matter of time.

Just ask any New Yorker.

But be quick about it.

Torture by iPhone

2011-10-25T21:51:00.007-04:00

Why didn't the clock wake him? He was such a light sleeper! "Arvie!" she called; no answer. "Arvie !" she called again, with a strange ring of remonstrance mingling with the terror in her voice. Arvie never answered. - from "Arvie Aspinall's Alarm Clock", by Henry Lawson

Yikes!

I'd had my iPhone-4s for just four days. Prior to this I'd been an Android Samsung gal. And I'd used heaps of Samsung Galaxy apps, including the inbuilt alarm feature.

Before I go on, I have to explain - alarms are of special significance in my life. Being a child of OZ (Australia) I grew up on Henry Lawson stories. One in particular caught my attention, and stayed with me - "Arvie Aspinall's Alarm Clock".

It is all about a little boy forced because of economic circumstances, to get up at the crack of dawn to earn a crust. It's a short story and in the end little Arvie doubts the Protestant work ethic (he was an intelligent child), gets a bad cold, and fails to wake at the sound of his alarm clock. He has died in the night.

I remember both of my parents telling me this story and dinning it into me that life was cruel, bosses were even crueler, and something else ... about capitalism ... but I forget what that was.

What struck me at the time was that Arvie owned a clock. I didn't. And that he had a job. I didn't.

This just goes to show that you can't count on your kids getting your message.

In any case, because of, or in spite of little Arvie, I've always had a thing about alarm clocks.

I'd liked my Samsung Galaxy alarm app. It was easy to set, and in the morning would start by sounding its alarm sound very very softly, and slowly increasing the volume. Starting off almost sub-auditory. By the time it reached hearing threshold, I'd be awake.

But then, I bought the iPhone-4S.

The inbuilt alarm on the iPhone has just one set volume. You can make it soft or loud, but as far as I can tell, there is no feature to have it start soft and morph to high. There seemed to be no way of setting it to come on at a very low volume and then to increase it until you woke. Furthermore, I am not familiar enough with iPhones to easily navigate the settings section. So I was unable to tailor the phone to play an alarm sound of my choice. I was stuck with the default which is something mid-way between a 1960's ambulance siren and a New York fire alarm.

For a few days I walked around a shattered wreck. And then DING - it dawned on me ... there must be an app for that.

So I cybered over to the cyber market-place and bought the first alarm app that had 4 stars. It looked good. You could set the alarm so the sound started off softly softly, and you could even set the number of seconds till it reached full volume. Plus there was a flashlight feature that I didn't bother with. I'd look at that later, I thought.

And so, on Sunday night I went to sleep, certain that I'd awake to the gentle sounds of Vivaldi's Four Seasons Autumn.

Instead.

Yep. You got it. I'd forgotten to disable the iPhone default app alarm. And what's more the flashlight feature of my new app had defaulted to "on".

At 6:58 am precise I was awakened to the sound of ambulance sirens and fire alarms at full bore, drowning out Vivaldi's Autumn which cut in at exactly the same time, and accompanied by a searing iPhone flashlight searing straight through my retinas into my brain.

Enough already yet. Arvie, my mum and dad were right.

Alarm clocks suck!

Bring on the revolution.

Remembrance of All Things Must Pass

2011-10-23T21:42:00.019-04:00

Sunrise doesn't last all morning
A cloudburst doesn't last all day
Seems my love is up
And has left you with no warning
But it's not always be this grey
- George Harrison, "All Things Must Pass, 1970

You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world
- John Lennon

My Brother Tim - Self-proclaimed Hippie, Golden Gate Park SF

I haven't been down to Zuccotti Park - ground zero for the "Occupy Wall Street" protests.

Yet.

I have two reasons.

I don't want to get arrested and
I am just not sure about what the protests mean.

Just last night I was watching the New York City News and saw Arlo Guthrie describing the protests as the new "Summer of Love". 1967 all over again.

I'm not convinced. That is not to say that I don't agree with the protests. But "Summer of Love" revisited? I don't think so.

"The Occupy Wall Street" movement has come at a time when the Summer of Love generation people are nearing retirement. I just read that the Massachusetts Legislature is considering a bill to create a vehicle registration plate for baby boomers at a charge $30. The New York Times editorial asks defining generational image will be: "A peace sign, maybe. Or a tie-dye T-shirt, a mushroom or a mushroom cloud (boom!), a bong, 'ME' in flowery script ..." etc. etc.

Are the Boomers the new flavor of the month? I suspect this is the case.

But while I support the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters, I have to wonder about their lack of agenda.

I remember the "Summer of Love". At the time I thought it was all about free love and protesting against the war in Vietnam. The more radical protesters wanted control over their university curriculum. Weird eh?

Yes the "Summer of Love". was essentially middle class and it's people were mainly middle-class kids, enrolled at university. Dropping out.

After all, if you weren't at school/university, what else could you "drop out" from? I suspect the working-class kids were too busy earning a crust.

The "Occupy" protests are comparatively classless. Protesters include a more representative cross-section of people. Not only the modern-day equivalent of flower-children dropping out of Berkeley, Melbourne University, Columbia, but community college kids, the unemployed, actors, singers, ex-hitch-hikers to Iran. I have to wonder, will reality TV show people be the next to join? Oh, and of course there are the Baby Boomers, the retired ones at least. For once again, "T-ttime is on our side ..."

I've watched TV interviews with protesters. The press is unforgiving and I am sure the reporters have deliberately picked, in many cases, the inarticulate. Sure, the protests are about Wall Street greed. But what do we want and when do we want it?

I'm yet to be convinced.

My current stand is that I support the protests. But until I REALLY know what they are about, I prefer to remain,

an Armchair Occupier.

Meet the Millenials

2011-10-18T22:22:00.009-04:00

The workplace has become a psychological battlefield and the millennials have the upper hand, because they are tech savvy, with every gadget imaginable almost becoming an extension of their bodies. They multitask, talk, walk, listen and type, and text. And their priorities are simple: they come first. - The Millenials Are Coming

Millenials on Subway

Forget Generation X. Or even Generation Y. And certainly forget the Baby Boomers.

We now have "The Millenials".

According to Pew Research, "America's newest generation, the Millennials, is in the middle of this coming-of-age phase of its life cycle. Its oldest members are approaching age 30; its youngest are approaching adolescence."

When I first read about the Millenials, I thought they were another species. The name sounds so SciFi. I imagined tall thin people wandering around Earth looking for work.

For that is the context in which I read about them. Somewhere I read that "Millenials" were having problems finding jobs.

As we all know, this global unemployment is the fault of Wall Street and its Euro and Asian counterparts. And in order to draw attention to the economic devastation caused by these stock exchanges, many Millenials have become "Occupiers". Occupiers are ideologically opposite to Tea-Party people. Of course it is possible to be a Millenial Tea-Partier, in which case you are "Misguided".

Perhaps the "Misguiders" will be the next group to grab the attention of the press. In which case no doubt its ranks will swell.

But back to the Millenials. Why did I imagine them as tall thin wispy people? Was it just the name?

Pre-Millenials, Brooklyn

I pondered this on my ride back home tonight. I was sitting next to a woman who was even older than a Baby-Boomer. She must have come of age in the nineteen fifties. What were THOSE people called? "Old people" comes to mind; but raking my long-term memory, I came up with "Bobby-Soxers".

So to rephrase.

I was sitting next to a Bobby-Soxer. She looked like the archetypical grandmother. White hair pulled back into a French twist, she was elegantly dressed and a silver eagle walking stick rested against her imacculate New York black skirt.

Every now and then the bus driver would sound his horn, holding the hormn down until the offending vehicle apparently blocking the bus's path, moved away. And whenever the driver did this, the Bobby-Soxer would yell "Shut UP!!!"

But what got me was, as no sooner than she'd emitted her "Shut up!", her face would go back to looking serene, and once again she was the story-book grandma.

Boomers and Millenials Unite

Around this time I was nearing the end of the novel, "The Leftovers". "The Leftovers" by Tom Perrotta is about a world where a million people have magically left earth, à la "Rapture".

Except it wasn't the Rapture. The book details the daily lives of a number of people who were not disappeared and who are called the "Leftovers". Individual Leftovers react differently as one would expect, but some form themselves into groups. One group is "The Watchers", aka "The Guilty Remnants". I preferred to think of these people as "Watchers" as "Guilty Remnants" made me think of buying scrap fabric at the now disappeared "Job Warehouse" in Melbourne a hundred years ago.

So there I was, on the bus, reading about Watchers - a subset of the Leftovers, sitting next to a Bobby-Soxer, when my mind did a lateral De Bono jump to the Millenials.

Millenials, Bobby-Soxers, Generation X-ers, Tea-Partiers, Occupiers.

What's the world coming to?

I'm just so glad that I am a Baby-Boomer. It sounds so solid. So normal. So salt-of-the-earth.

Oh and by the way, if you are thinking of reading "The Leftovers", don't bother. Unless of course, you are into baseball.

And as to why I say this, you cannot know. Not unless you get to the last chapter.

And I don't wish that on anybody. Not even on Tea-Partiers!

Voyage Around My Mother

2011-10-13T22:18:00.034-04:00

The reason grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is that they have a common enemy. - Sam Levenson

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between - Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer c1945)

Alma Road East St Kilda - Circa Last Century!

"What a shocker!" my daughter exclaimed, upon seeing - apparently for the first time - this photo of me as a child - holding a toffee apple, in front of my home some time a hundred years ago.

"The hair!" she added.

Well I knew. But I'd repressed it. The hair. In the language of 21st century Australia - it was "a shocker"!

But at last, someone-not-me had voiced it. There was no turning back.

"It's a basin cut, Mum," she continued. "She was probably too poor to take you to a hair-dresser." "She didn't cut it," I snapped back. "She took me to a BARBER!"

That night in my dreams it all came flooding back. The hair-cuts, the embarrassment, me looking at the other girls at school - pretty girls with curly locks.

"She hated me," said my inner voice. My inner child. And I listened.

As the day wore on, I became increasingly convinced. My inner child had surfaced and was telling me something. No, let me be honest, she was SHRIEKING it! "She didn't like you; she was JEALOUS!" she was saying.

I pretended I couldn't hear her and went to the office. Conveniently I became lost in meetings, codings, emails. But the inner child was not to be stifled.

And Again!

I remembered years ago seeing a therapist in Australia. Her name was Lolita. Really! She didn't look like a "Lolita" though. I remember her as looking sort of academic. A blue-stocking. An intellectual. Full of wisdom.

We'd sit her dimly-lit consultation room and I'd talk. Occasionally she'd comment.

"You have to learn to LOVE that little girl, the child that was YOU," she said one day. In response to what, I do not remember. But the comment stuck.

I tried. I tried to love that inner child but it didn't happen. I continued to stifle my inner child's persistent voice.

And then last week after my call to my daughter, my inner child became even more strident. Telling me about my mother. She wouldn't shut up. Yes, she was obviously MY inner child. Remembering my daughter's comment on my childhood hair-cut, at last I accepted her credentials ...

Still, she was hardly likeable. Though she did earn my respect; she had persistence.

I picked up the phone and called my daughter.

And Again!

"Hey, I have to thank you for pointing out that 'shocker' haircut," I said. "I now know that my mother hated me."

[giggles]

"Yes, really," I insisted.

My daughter came up with all sorts of excuses for my mother's behaviour. But I could tell that she was searching desperately, blindly. There was no getting past it. That haircut was the product of my mother's instructions to the barber, hairdresser, whatever.

AND it wasn't an isolated haircut. It was the norm.

Eventually my daughter concurred. After she'd controlled her laughter she said, "Mum, you've had an epiphany!"

Yep, that's what I'd had.

I'd always thought though that an epiphany was a thing of wonder. Like seeing Jesus, or discovering that the world isn't flat.

But then, seeing as I'm currently trying to be a "glass-half-full" kinda person, I supposed that I should accentuate the positive.

A bad hair-cut is no tragedy. It'll always grow out.

But try telling THAT to my inner child.

She's still screaming!

On Being iSad

2011-10-06T21:51:00.016-04:00

We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all. - Steve Jobs

Me with an Unknown Delegate a Hundred Years Ago

"Who is Steve Jobs?" I asked.

It was a hundred years ago. Melbourne, Australia. I was on the Organising Committee of the First Pan Pacific Computer Conference.

I was talking to "the other Kate". There were two of us "Kates" back then - two known-in-the-industry-Kates, that is.

Kate Behan had just announced, excitedly and triumphantly that she'd been successful in getting Steve Jobs as a key-note speaker for the conference.

Hence my question.

How could I have been so ignorant? Well, back then I was a PC person, immersed in programming. But to be perfectly honest, I've always been bad with names ...

I remember Kate staring at me. Unbelieving. And then she answered. "Just the most important person in computing. Just a genius."

I have to compliment Kate on her vision. Certainly I didn't appreciate it back then. I saw her more as a marketing person than a serious computer scientist. Yes, I know. I'm a shallow person.

Tonight I looked through my old photos taken at social events I'd attended at the First Pan Pacific Computer Conference. I scoured the photos, looking at the crowds at the restaurant tables to see if Steve Jobs was there. Was he even at the conference? I can't remember if I went to his keynote address or not. Or if he was there or not. Yep, "shallow" is a good word for me!

I DO remember Kate telling her husband "Sit here between me and Kate. That way you won't have to remember names." Top-left is a photo of me with an unknown delegate. A photo taken by "The Happy Medium Photo Co." Quelle name!

Look at the table in the photo above - Vegemite, tomato sauce. I have vague memories of the venue being an Australian-themed comedy club. Australians are not known for their subtlety.

Kate Behan. I'll have to look her up on FaceBook. Surely she'll remember if I met Steve Jobs.

Diners at the Formal Conference Dinner

I always liked Kate. I liked her sense of humour. I remember her saying once, "Just because you call a variable 'grand-_total' doesn't mean it's got a grand total stored in it." She was having a dig at someone who had recently attained for himself a grander title. Something like "Chairman of the First Pan Pacific Conference" perhaps? Not really. I can't remember who she was referring to. As I said, I've never been good with names.

I'm annoyed at myself though. Why can't I remember whether Steve Jobs was at that conference? Or if I met him if he was? It's bit like the first time I had sexual intercourse. I didn't even know I'd had it! I had to be TOLD!

Yep, I'll look out for Kate B on FaceBook.

I've already organized ordering a new iPhone. In white.

I need something to brighten things up.

The world is a darker place without Steve Jobs.

Lagged2Death added this as a favorite

2011-09-28T22:52:00.010-04:00

"Like": Preposition: Having the same characteristics or qualities as; similar to: "they were like brothers". Conjunction: In the same way that; as: "people who change countries like they change clothes". Definition of "like from Google's 'Everything' Search

Lagged2Death's Favorite

I was chuffed. A fellow Flickr person added my photo (you can see it on the left) to his "favorites"! His/her name is "Lagged2death".

What's the world coming to? And what's more, what does this mean? And what does this say about me?

I am starting to become, horror of horrors, a cyber social network person. I get my kicks from some person who I do not know (and who I will never know) in FaceBook jargon, "liking" one of my photos. Call it "adding it as a favorite", "liking it", "hearting it", "plus one-ing" or "one-plussing" it, it's all the same. Someone clicked something I'd posted, and I was pleased.

Good god! I'm starting to have a cyber life. Well better than no life. Come to think of it, I wonder, does "Lagged2death" have a life?

Whatever. A large part of my life is becoming "cyber". Take today for instance. I was walking to my bus stop on Third Avenue. It's close to Dylan's Candy Bar. And just in case you don't know, and of course, even if you do,

From Wiki entry on Dylan's Candy Bar: "Dylan's Candy Bar is a chain of boutique candy shops and candy supplier currently located in New York City, East Hampton, Roosevelt Field, Orlando and Houston, as well as in wholesale venues around the globe. It is owned by Dylan Lauren, daughter of Ralph Lauren."

Readers of my blog with recognize this photo of Dylan's store-front from a few years back.

Dylan's is a few meters from my bus stop and I always glance at their window display. Usually I keep on walking but today I did a double-take. What was this? A display of candies arranged to look like grave-stones, with the inscription, "RIP". In Americanese, I thought to myself, 'huh?'

Did "RIP" stand for something other than I'd understood it for the last 100 years?

I stood there staring like someone from another century. Which of course I am! Hells bells!

Candy Gravestones at Dylan's Candy Bar

And then it dawned on me. Or should I say "dusked on me"? It was all about graves, cemeteries, skeletons, scary dead people, ghosts ... Halloween!

I moved away from Dylan's window. My bus was coming. I got on and took my seat. And "tweeted".

"I am so NOT a Halloween person!"

Which just goes to show that:

a: deep down I am still a true-blue aussie

and

b: I am a social networking person.

Until next tweet,

I am Kathleenwng and I approve this message.

A Tale of Two Centers, or Should that be Centres?

2011-09-25T16:41:00.028-04:00

"Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate." - Chuang Tzu (389-286 BC)

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes. - from Cole Porter, "Anything Goes"

Proseccos at the Lincoln

This past week started with a "Centre" and ended with a "Center", the latter being by far the more pleasurable.

Pleasurable in the main because it was organized by my good friend Babs, an aficionado of all things New York.

Whenever I go out with Barbara I let her organize everything. Which she does, choosing venues, restaurants, entertainments with impeccable taste. And this week was a treat for both of us - a day at the Lincoln Center, the central part of which was an afternoon at Paul McCartney's "Ocean's Kingdom".

We started the day with pre-afternoon drinks at Jonathan Benno's "Lincoln", located in the grounds of the Lincoln Center.

When I think of the Lincoln Center I always smile, remembering my early days in New York when a mutual Australian friend of myself and Babs, volunteered to show me around. He took me everywhere Manhattan, - or so I thought. And then one day I realized that I'd never been taken to the Lincoln Center.

"What's the Lincoln Center like, Robin," I asked innocently. "Like Chadstone, Daaahling" he disparaged, referring to a sixties white monstrosity of a shopping mall in suburban Melbourne, our home-town. Robin - who would buy linen napkins in colors to match his salads - last time I saw him was years ago at the Union Square Farmers' Market. He was buying aubergines, "But WHERE on earth I'll find purple napkins THIS shade, in THIS country, I DON'T know!" he drawled.

Seating for Free Outdoor Events, Lincoln Center

Yes Robin had style, but a up-market, gay, Melbourne style. Babs, although she hails from Perth, is pure New York.

When she called to invite me to a day at the Lincoln Center to see Paul McCartney's new ballet, "Ocean's Kingdom", to be followed by dinner at Daniel Boulud's newly opened "Boulud Sud", I was enthusiastic. I googled "Boulud Sud" and read that the dress code is "elegant casual". Typical Babs. But I was concerned. I can "do" casual, it was the elegant part that had me worried.

But Babs assured me she'd just be "throwing anything on". After all, it was Manhattan, and a Saturday in the day time, where anything goes.

Of course she turned up impeccably dressed in theme for the ballet. Slender, lithe Babs in figure-hugging black except for her shoes which were golden and square-toed, ballerina style.

New York Girls, Columbus Circle

After our pre-event drinks at the Lincoln it was off to the David H. Koch Theater to see the only second performance of Paul McCartney's "Ocean's Kingdom".

There are two types of humans in this world, "John Lennon" and "Paul McCartney" people. Naturally Babs and I are both John Lennon people. We wonder why, "Isn't everyone?"

Still, Paul McCartey is Paul McCartney and we were also interested in his daughter's costume design for the Peter Martins' choreographed ballet.

I've read the reviews today, O boy (pun intended) and they are universally uncompromisingly bad, especially I thought Alistair MacAuwlay's "Pop God Dives Into World of Ballet" in the New York Times. Mr. MacAuwlay seems to have it in for Mr Martins. Lucky for Melbourne, Mr Martins has never seen Chadstone! Then, no doubt he would really get the knives out!

Still Babs and I enjoyed the ballet. It was fun, colorful, and I thought Mr. MacAuwlay was a bit rough on his critique of Stella McCartneey's costumes. I liked they way the earthlings looked Maori warriors, but perhaps me being antipodean helped ...

Centre Street, Manhattan

Then it was off to Boulud Sud where the food and wine were excellent. By 9:00 pm when we set off home we were both exhausted.

Yes I ended my week at the Lincoln Center, but started it at Centre Street. Centre Street in Lower Manhattan, where the courthouses are situated. I wonder why it has the English spelling? Perhaps because it originated during colonial times.

Yes I was on jury duty. In fact I ended up actually serving on a jury. I was "Juror Number Two". And it was almost fun. I even got a laugh from the presiding judge.

But that's another story ...

The Empire of the Angry Birds

2011-09-22T22:21:00.023-04:00

"Help your friends build their Empires. Send them a Mystery Gift" - Blurb from FaceBook's "Empires and Allies"

"Alert all commands. Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory." - Darth Vader, "The Empire Strikes Back"

I was sitting ... well reclining ... in the dentist's chair. Unable to speak.

Don't get me wrong. I like my dentist. He's a Larry David sorta guy. A New Yorker. A talker. And I was, a captive audience.

He was explaining how he'd become addicted to a FaceBook "game" - "Empires and Allies". "It's great," he said. "You get points and friends come in to help you - like a cooperative. It's kinda social. It isn't Farmville. That's not somewhere I'd go. This is interesting. What do YOU play?"

I hesitated. Was it the nitrous oxide kicking in, or the fact that my mouth was full of dental paraphernalia? Whatever. After a hundred years I answered.

"I like 'Angry Birds'. I am addicted to 'Angry Birds'." At least that's what I meant to say. What with the nitrous, the metal, the tubes etc, I was surprised that he understood.

Juliff, Texas - a non-virtual empire?

"Oh, Angry Birds, but that's played ALONE. 'Empire and Allies' is a GROUP effort." He went on to explain how people "related to each other" as they built or lost their empires. Oh yes, he liked another FaceBook game. Some poker thing where you all sat around a virtual cyber imaginary table and played poker. You could even buy a buddy a virtual beer.

I was "virtually" impressed.

Back home I decided to take a look at "Empires and Allies". After all, I'd been disbelieving when a friend had told me about Angry Birds, and now I am an addict. Moreover, I liked the name "Empires and Allies" and imagined it'd be something like the old board-game "Diplomacy" where there was a battle of the wits, and duplicity reigned supreme.

So I did a FaceBook search and found the thing. Yes, "thing". I joined. I even named my empire, after my brother - "Empire of the Aumbat." I was presented with a cartoon-like picture of a battlefield and intuitively clicked around and built a few things - schools, huts, artillery.

So far, so good. I waited.

Nothing happened.

Upon virtually surveying the virtual environment I realised I needed virtual allies. I brought up the "add allies" screen and proceeded to "invite" all of my friends who owed me a favor. I was starting to cringe, remembering all those Farmville requests I used to get annoyed by. "Annie needs a donkey to chew her grass. Can you help?"

God only knew what my "friends" were being asked! "Kate needs an ally to defeat the enemies of the Empire of the Aumbat". I cringed, but only virtually ...

Eventually, I succeeded, as is my wont, in suppressing the whole negative empire thing, and shut down the computer.

Still a bit of my "empire" lived on, and the next morning I checked it out. No one had replied. The Empire of the Aumbat still had a population of ONE.

Days passed. My Empire was in stagnation mode. A few emails surfaced - encouraging emails like, "Congratulations you have earned 5 cents, buy yourself a centurion" kinda thing.

I quaked in my stilettos. How was I to "buy" a centurion? Did the message mean "literally"? Would my credit card be charged?

Gingerly I re-entered my Empire. It was still there. A sad little affair of one hut, a tank and a few yeomen.

Yikes!

I needed cheering up.

This social life was not for me! So much for enlisting one's friends. Where were my allies when I needed them? Farming their Farmville farms, no doubt.

What was I to do?

And then the light-globe came on.

ANGRY BIRDS!

Yay!!!!!

Some people are just not meant to be social!

The Niceness Voyage

2011-09-16T22:08:00.021-04:00

The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil and incompetence... sort of like the Post Office with tanks. - Emo Phillips

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world - Bob Thiele 1968

Well, I call it a voyage as it has a beginning, and an end.

The beginning - I was remembering a long-ago meeting. A long-ago meeting with someone I'd known long-ago. Her name is Joy, and I'd known her as a child. Later, she had worked with my mother at a law firm in Melbourne. I hadn't seen her since I was twelve when some time in the late nineties, I bumped into her at a BBQ in Australia.

I didn't recognize her, it being a hundred years since we'd last met. She was striding purposefully toward me.

"You are Kate Juliff," she accused. "You and my cousin were mean to me when I was eleven and I've spent the last 30 years in therapy as a result." And then, without drawing breath (she is obviously not a smoker) she continued with, "I worked at the same place as your mother after I left school. Mrs Juliff was such a NICE lady!"

Why did I remember this long-ago monologue of long ago last Wednesday morning in New York? I have no idea, but remember it I did, and I decided to become "a NICE person". I'm always in for a change, and instead of redecorating or buying new clothes or taking up a new interest, I decided to become a "nice person".

And that was the beginning of the niceness journey.

It all went well. To begin with. I was really nice to the bus driver saying "good morning" on alighting, and "thank you" on departing. I asked the doorman how was his young son and he beamed, surprised no doubt that I remembered that his wife had given birth just two years ago.

Then today, I was nice to my dentist and his assistant, asking how they were and smiling throughout the agony.

On my way home I spotted a new store, "Kidding Around" in Grand Central. I went in and browsed and found some New York toys and books. The nice person thought, these would be good for my grandchild, aged five months.

When I was at the counter getting ready to pay for my New York kid things, the clerk asked me if I'd like to join their mailing list. Ordinarily I'd have just snarled and said no thank you, but today I was being nice. "Certainly," I replied with a smile.

"What do you think of my new store?" she asked. "It's delightful!" I answered. Nicely.

"Great, please accept this gift in appreciation," she said, handing me a mermaid doll replete with silvery tail.

I was all niceness. The sun was shining. New York, New York. What had I been missing in my prior non-nice life?

Pret A Manger, Lexington Avenue

I stopped at Pret a Manger, the English fast-but-healthy food place, for an egg sandwich and a cappuccino. I smiled as I ordered. The barista smiled back.

And then I decided to stop at the post office to mail my "Kidding Around" purchases back to Australia. There's a post office in Grand Central so it was convenient. Usually I buy my postage online. But the new "nice" me decided to interact with humans. Besides, I'd read that the US Postal Service was about to go under. Best to support the human postal workers, thought the new "nice" me.

On entering the hall-like interior of the Grand Central Post Office, I saw that human contact was being discouraged. Signs everywhere advised consumers to use "DYI" parcels. I looked for an international DYI section, and finding none, pushed the books, the toy New York taxi and mermaid from "Kidding Around" into a standard US Post box, I found a customs form, filled it in, and joined a line (queue).

There were only about six people ahead of me and a greeter-sort-of-US-Post-employee was wandering around looking as if she was there to help us.

As one of the customers finished her transactions at the counter and headed off toward the exit, Ms Greeter-Person confronted her. "People are complaining you took a long time!" she accused. The customer looked taken-aback. "But all I did was buy stamps," she explained, almost apologizing. "Don't blame me!" came the reply. "I am not allowed to hurry you up, I am just reporting the general consensus of your fellow customers."

Bloody hell! I decided to keep a low profile and stood dutifully for around ten minutes, when Ms Greeter-Person approached me and told me I was in the wrong line. "How could I know?" I asked, and then from the look on her face thought better of it, and joined the only other line in the place. There were around twelve people ahead of me.

Post Office Door, Grand Central

I kept reminding myself that I was now a "nice" person, and stood patiently. And then she appeared again. Ms Greeter-Person

"You need to tape that box up," she complained. I explained that I'd taken the box from a pile under a sign encouraging us to use them, and how could I tape it up myself? Upon which she thrust a roll of USPS tape into my hand and told me to go to the packing area and to tape it, and to then come back to see her before re-joining the line.

Well I tried. The roll was about 10" in diameter. I was trying to push the box flaps together while at the same time holding my handbag, my lettuce sandwich from Pret A Manger, the USPS tape roll, and the custom form. It was all too much.

I asked another customer if she could help me. Recognizing me as a "nice person", she readily complied. We got part of the tape stuck to the box but how to cut it? The helpful other-customer tried with her nails. Then with her teeth. There was no way!

I thanked her nicely and approached Ms Greeter-Person. "I'm sorry but I can't do this," I said. "I'd need scissors!"

"Well the PUBLIC (shudder shudder) STEAL the dispensers so what can we do," she replied.

And then my journey ended.

Abruptly.

Completely.

"No wonder the Postal Service is going broke!" I snarled.

Quick as a flash she New-York-answered, "EXCUSE me! But I wouldn't march into YOUR work and insult YOU!"

"Oh," I came back, giving as good as I got. "I bet you would!"

"And it isn't why we are going broke," she added.

I agreed.

New-York-like we both decided to call it a day. She said she'd apply the tape. And led me to a counter and apply the tape she did. Like a maniac. I am pretty sure my "Hello New York" book was taped to the wooden toy New York cab. As for the mermaid doll, as Ms Greeter-Person "cut" the tape by stabbing it furiously axe-murder-like with her ballpoint pen, I fear that she'll look more like a chewed-up pin-cushion than a magical silvery sea-creature...

I joined the line.

I waited.

Decades passed and then it was my turn.

A clerk with a head like a pencil snarled at me and made me wait while he translated my hand-written custom form into ASCII on his keyboard. After an eternity I saw the charge, $45, come up on the customer display pad. I went to swipe my credit card.

"Not now!" he screamed. I shrank back.

A few years later he commanded "Now!" I swiped my card. A dotted line appeared on the pad, so I picked up the stylus that was anchored to the pad, to sign my name. "NO NO NO!" he said. "On PAPER. With a PEN! THAT is not a pen!!!"

I complied. I just wanted out of there.

I remembered the American saying about "getting the hell out of Dodge" and suddenly understood it.

I walked slowly to the exit, trying to get the niceness feeling back.

But it was shivering, recoiled, hiding somewhere, shrivelled deep inside some safe part of my mind.

Never to return.

The voyage had ended.

Domestic Bliss on the M102

2011-09-08T23:24:00.011-04:00

From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying - "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", Bob Dylan 1965

They were all of 95. 95 years old, that is. - A husband and wife. On the M102, the MTA bus that runs north along Third.

I was sitting opposite them. Unfortunately, you can only see their legs. I tried to snap a candid pic surrepticiously with my cell phone, but the woman - the one with the knee-length socks - was too quick for me. "Excuse me lady," she yelled for all the bus to hear. "You ain't takin' no pictures!"

I avoided eye contact and pretended to be texting. Hence the photo of the legs.

That's her husband. On her right. They'd got onto the bus at 68th Street. She couldn't find her ticket, and stood halfway between the driver and the step to the door, searching in her handbag. "Lost it again," her husband smirked - a braver man than I.

She let loose as he scuttled toward the middle of the bus to take shelter. In vain.

"I am not the one who loses things," she tiraded. "Why am I the one who has to do everything for you and your pathetic family?" All this being said from her place at the front of the bus for the whole bus to hear.

She sat down opposite me, and when the woman to her right got up to leave she shrieked at her husband to join her. There were at least ten sets of seats between her and him, but the bus was her private space. "Move HERE!" she commanded. Which he did. He dare not do otherwise.

There ensued a monologue about how she'd cleaned the kitchen cupboards because some relative of HIS was coming to stay. Even the people jabbering on their cell phones were drowned out. The husband just sat there. Then, just when it seemed that she was winding down, for some reason she realized it was nearly 9/11.

"Do you know how many firemen died because of 9/11?" she snapped at her spouse.

"I do actually," he beamed triumphantly. "343!

"WRONG!" she cackled. "343 at Ground Zero but hundreds more after that because of the dust and stuff! Ha!"

To give the guy credit, he tried to wheedle out of it, explaining that he thought she meant ON 9/11. To no avail. "Did I say that?" she snapped, "WHEN did I say that? When did I say, 'ON 9/11?'"

It was around then that I decided to snap her picture. I should have realized this was one sharp lady. She knew instantly what I was doing, and then made sure that the whole bus knew.

I lowered the cell phone, tilting it down. I had no desire to be the object of her wrath.

Self Portrait - Through a Bus With Flowers

And so there you have it. Legs.

Is there an upper age limit on eligibility for running for president of the United States? I think not. I'll check it out and if there isn't, and IF I can find her, I will suggest she run. At least she'd be interesting.

After the old woman and her husband let the bus, it seemed strangely, eerily, quiet. All we could hear were the sounds of the under-thirties talking loudly on their cell phones, back-grounded with muffled sounds of rap music emanating from iPods. Oh, and the honking of horns. And the screeching sirens. And the clunking sound of the bus's shock absorbers bumping into the bus's under-carriage as it hopped its way from pot-hole to pot-hole, heading north up Third.

Oh yes, it was good to relax after a hard day at the office ...

Cyber Trails

2011-09-06T00:10:00.014-04:00

Our descendants ... will have at their fingertips a deep digital archive of information that we created ourselves. - "What happens after your final status update?", Adam Ostrow,(CNN)

Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
In my mind and in my car
We can't rewind we've gone to far
Oh-a-aho oh
Oh-a-aho oh - From "Video Killed the Radio Star", The Buggles 1979

My brother still has his FaceBook page. He died last January. He was 61.

It somehow comforts me that his FaceBook page exists. A legacy.

I've long pondered the effect of modern technology on our access to the memories of things past. Take my kids for example.

They were born in the early to mid-seventies. I have photos of them, but no videos, no webpages, no digital footprints of their early lives. I don't even have the sound of their voices on tape, let alone on video or CD. Just a few photos, developed from film. And yes I've scanned them in, but as they were not digitally recorded at the time, the number of them in no way compares to the hundreds of photos digitized by the modern day cameras, of babies today.

And my own childhood. Was there even color?

I have to smile, remembering my daughter when she was about eight. She'd been watching some old movies on the TV. In black and white. A few days later she asked me, "What was it like, Mum, living in the world when everything was black and white?"

Girl With Wire Pram, 1947

Yeah, what was it like? I actually remember my childhood as being in black and white. I wonder. Is that because the photos of me as a child were all in black and white. Are my early childhood memories only memories of memories of photos. Or was it that the fifties and early sixties of last century were in fact, monochromatic?

Whatever.

Before me. Before my mother. Before my grandmother. There were not even photos. Those ancestors could leave us very little. All I have of "Juliffs" going back 10 generations, are transcribed passages from Last Will and Testaments. Signed with thumbprints apparently!

"And my further desire is that my wife Margery Juleff (sic) may live with her children for the space of one year after my decease, and if they cannot agree and be comfortable, my last request is that she should depart and leave them to themselves." Signed William Julleff's mark 1832

No one can say we Juliffs aren't an accommodating lot ...

But that being so - all that is left of my ancestor Will, apart from a gravestone somewhere in Cornwell, is his last Will and Testament. We don't know what he looked like, we don't know his likes, his dislikes. We certainly don't know what filmstar he would have been had he been a filmstar. Nope, old Will wasn't on FaceBook and there was no 19th century equivalent.

And so, when I think, which I do every day, of my brother Tim, I say a secret unconscious, unacknowledged, unspoken thank you, to Mr Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk.

"What happens after your final status update?", asks CNN's Adam Ostrow.

What was my brother's last, his final update? I logged on to Tim's FaceBook. There was something there about a street in Melbourne being flooded. Not an update really. More a Wall posting of a news item from the Melbourne Age. So I scrolled back. And back. And then I came to it.

Pure Tim.

Someone had wished all her FaceBook friends, "Happy Easter!"

"Not so happy for Jesus," he'd "statused".

Well said, Tim!

Well remembered.

Sorely missed!

The Unsophisticated App and the Mere Male Syndrome

2011-09-02T00:01:00.037-04:00

By George, she's got it!
By George, she's got it! - from "The Rain in Spain", Alan Jay Lerner 1956

For you are younger than I
Younger than I, younger than I
And I am wiser than you - from "Lemon-Haired Ladies", Dory Previn 1971

Ever since there was such a thing as apps, I've been trying to dream up one to make my fortune. And every idea I've had, has proven to have already been taken.

Eventually I decided that I was a bit too slow on the uptake. Age had gotten the better of me; a new generation of people brought up on iPods, iMacs and eco-burgers was taking over.

But then ... I saw the light. It happened when I was checking my Twitter account. Jedro74 had posted the following, "I CANNOT believe the Australian media is ignoring this story! http://twitpic.com/6e1mui".

Thinking that my fellow countryman Julian Assange had created yet another brouhaha, I clicked. Only to find ... well click it yourself ...

It was nothing to do with Assange. It was just that old Australian simplicity, that je ne sais quoi of the unworldly, the unsophisticated, that other worldliness that MAY exist in America, but which I have yet to come across, was alive and well.

Naive Americans like Christine O'Donnell tend to believe in the devil and witches. Naive Australians are not held back by primitive beliefs in Christianity circa AD500. Naive Australians are more focused on the mundane.

"Out-of-date pasty is sold to young mum", screamed Australia's Folkestone Herald on August 25th. "Toddler took bite of food three days past its sell-by date", it groaned.

Page one news! One can only guess the readership of the Folkestone Herald .

My mind drifted back to a hundred years ago when I myself was a "young mum". I wasn't in paid employment - I'd decided to stay at home to raise the children. But I'd always wanted my own income. What work can one do at home?

I discovered an income source. An Australian women's magazine, "The New Idea" had a column, called "The Mere Male". All it was, was a collection of letters from readers about some weird thing their "hubbies" had done. You wrote in with your "Mere Male" tale and if it was published you were sent a check for $5. If it made "Letter of the Week", you got more.

And so I set to work. I can't remember all my letters but I do remember the first one.

"I asked MM (New Idea for "Mere Male") to wash the lettuce while I was going out to shop. When I came back I saw him hosing the lettuce on the lawn in the front yard". Jedro74 was about 18 months old at the time. And I earned $10 for my contribution.

Now, my reasoning is this - if the "New Idea", which was in all probability, and probably still is, owned by the Murdoch Press, could pay me tens of dollars way back in the Dark Ages, they must have had a reason. And the reason MUST have been that there was a market made up of people who actually wanted to read such idiocy.

A market that has been forgotten - forgotten by virtue of the focus on the educated, the sophisticated, the high tech, the Generation teXters.

I'm pretty sure I can tap into that market. The "Mere Male" readers of OZ - those people don't want an app that will monitor their gym activity, apps that will check their heart rate and how many miles they jogged to Starbucks, apps that know when ARRS falls below $11. Such people don't want Kindle or Nook Apps. They certainly don't want to read the Times Literary Supplement on iPads.

They want stuff like "Mere Male" or information about two year olds who might have eaten stale bread. Yes-siree-Bob, I have found an untapped source.

And THAT, dear reader, is my market.

But before anyone accuses me of being condescending, elitist, ex-MacRob girl or Ms Smarty Pants - remember - I pride myself on being just that.

Australian for Phở Bò

2011-08-30T22:08:00.032-04:00

Come on down to the Mermaid Cafe
and I will buy you a bottle of wine
And we'll laugh and toast to nothing
and smash our empty glasses down
- Joni Mitchell, "Carey", 1971

Phở originated in the early 20th century in northern Vietnam. The specific place of origin appears to be southwest of Hanoi in Nam Dinh province, then a substantial textile market, where cooks sought to please both Vietnamese [...] and French tastes. - From Wikipedia Phở

"New Asia Grill" - 94th and 2nd, Manhattan

You could tell that they were Australians.

As soon as they stepped into the doorway of the newly opened "New Asia Grill" on the corner of 86th and Third.

A couple, early thirties, both tanned with sun-bleached hair - and with all the time in the world.

"D'ya have BYO?" the male half of the pair asked of the tiny Asian greeter. The woman (don't we always?) translated. And then, when it was established that the pair could indeed bring their own wine, the man left to cross the street to buy a bottle.

I listened to them later as they ordered. Yes, I was right. Definitely Australian. They were talking about the "starters", referring to them (correctly) as "entrées". On returning, the man had ordered a beer. When it arrived the couple clinked bottle and glass - looking at each other with that nonchalance of the long-married couple who still has that Aussie regard for social niceties - and said, "Cheers".

Ah, my memory was jolted. My mind floated back to a more civilized time. A time when entrées meant entrées. When we'd à la Joni Mitchell, "laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down".

Crowd at the "Mekong", Melbourne, OZ

Memories of Victoria Street, Melbourne. Home of the best Vietnamese cuisine outside of Vietnam. Of "Mekong Vietnam" in Melbourne's CBD, which is proud to proclaim in its window, "Bill Clinton Ate Here!"

The "New Asia Grill" on 86th Manhattan is a far cry from the genuine-article Vietnamese restaurants of Melbourne - Melbourne, perhaps the culinary capital of the world.

But it's worth a visit. Any restaurant that opens onto a construction site - a construction with a proposed life of 11 years- has to deserve our respect.

Yes, that's where the "New Asia Grill" is located. Slap bang in the middle of the mess that is Manhattan's Second Avenue subway site construction - started 2007 and supposedly to be completed by 2017. Of course they didn't tell us that when they started. 2012 was the estimated complete date back then. Do a bit of arithmetic. With that rate of delay we are realistically looking at maybe 2026.

Entrance to the "New Asia Grill"

When I first went to the "Asia Grill" last weekend, I had to enter through the kitchen - the construction works were blocking front entry. But the staff were cheery and putting on a good face. What else could they do?

Even a Little Aussie Battler couldn't do any better, or worse. And Little Aussie Battlers always have the worst luck. And overcome it.

I hope that the "New Asia Grill" does well. Sure its food isn't as good as the fare we get downunder. But there's enough of a similarity to jog the memories of the sun-bleached Aussie tourists. Let alone us long-termers, here for the duration. Yes you have to admire the pluck, the tenacity of the owners of the "New Asia Grill".

What is it that they say?

"If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere" ....

New Asia Grill
1817 2nd Ave
(between 94th St & 93rd St)
New York, NY 10128
Ph (212) 828-3066

Give it a go folks!

Twitting on their TwitPhones

2011-08-21T20:16:00.018-04:00

"I'm very worried about the future of humanity with so many people sending Twits on their twitPhones." An Ex., August 2011

And you know something is happening
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones? - "Ballad of a Thin Man", Bob Dylan, 1966

Now, I'm no advocate of Twitter, FaceBook, or social networking in general. But at times I feel that I must rise to their defense. And those times are when people, people who have never even used those social networks, feel free to criticize them. How can you criticize something that you don't know what it is?

Twitter - I check it out several times a day; I'd spend, at most, 20 minutes a day there. I don't follow many people but I would have to say that at least once a week, I find something beneficial or amusing from my TwitReading.

Take today for example. I'm a follower of @theBookSlut. She's well worth following. This morning I followed on from one of her tweets and read a really amusing O Henry story - I'd not have even heard of it were it not for Ms BookSlut's "Tweet".

And FaceBook. I use it to keep up with friends and family. I'd spend say 15 minutes a day on it. 15 minutes a day. It used to take me that long to go to the corner store (OZ == milkbar) to buy a carton of milk. And no one wrote about the disastrous affects of overdosing on milk.

One has to wonder about Mr. Ex. and his concern about humanity and his "TwitPhones". I'm a firm believer in - "if you don't know what it is, don't assume the right to criticize it".

Of course, no doubt he (Mr. Ex.) meant what he said in jest. At least I hope so. Give me some credit for my ability to discern good partners, albeit retrospectively! That is, the retrospective credit, not the nonexistent retrospective choice.

Luckily for him, Mr. Ex. is not on Twitter. I can only assume that if he read the tweet about his comment on Twits and Twit phones, that he'd come up with some smart repartée. But of course, he wont; so he wont.

I remember yet another "Ex" - and yes, I've had several. He was complaining about HIS Ex - who had wanted to name their child a misspelled thing - Raychelle or something along those lines. "If you can't spell it, you can't have it!" he claimed he'd told her.

But even better, and even more ironical - to use a much over-used term - is to be tweeted about your misspelled-anti-tweet comment - my Ex. and his anti-Tweet non-Tweet!

Now, where can I buy a TwitPhone?

Categorically Speaking

2011-08-20T17:47:00.008-04:00

"First of all, we don't like to be referred to as 'normal'. We're 'able-bodies', not normal. That's like from the eighties" - Larry David, in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" to a disabled man who has just referred to a stall for "normal" people.

"Sweatpants were so submerging, so suburban, so Upper West Side. 'We live in the West Village,' Gerhard said ... 'solely to escape sweatpants'" - From A Day at the Beach, Helen Schulman

Upper West Side - Where Have All the Sweatpants Gone?

I've always been into categories. They fascinate me. How things can be sorted, categorized, named, labeled ...

I like the inherent humor of categories. For example, a while ago I read that there were once Neanderthal-like people in Asia, much the same as the European variety, except they had slanty-eyes. Why I find this amusing I can't explain. It just seems so weird that geographical location could have such a bearing on eyelids. And at the same times, it's sort of cute. There we were in our Western insularity and arrogance, imagining Neanderthals as being universal, when in reality, our Western Neanderthals were just one of a kind. I wonder what else was different about the Asian variety. Their caves, for example ...

And then there's the soft porn categories. Now I'm no aficionado of porn. It doesn't turn me on. But if I ever thought about it, I suppose I'd just imagined there'd be porn for different sexual orientations. But after moving into my apartment in New York and I discovered, on putting out trash in the compactor room, that the Chinese guy down the corridor, had thrown out for recycling - recycling porn? - Chinese porn. It had never occurred to me that porn was related to race. Bizzaro!

Medical categories. Vet categories. There's a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode where Larry David questions the wife of a veterinary surgeon at a dinner parties. Are there categories of vets? he asks her. As with human doctors where we have orthopedic surgeons, gastoentorologists, urologists and so on. Are the vets for horses, kittens, hens?

The vet's wife correctly follows this on with the absurdity of something along the lines of, do you mean then that there should be vets specializing in like, feathers?

As well as finding categories amusing, I also find amusing people who are obsessed with which categories that they would belong to, if they weren't themselves. People who find themselves so interesting that they will post on FaceBook what sort of movie star they would have been, had they been a movie star. Or what sort of vegetable. Amazing. ASIF by imagining which category they would have belonged to had the belonged to a superset of that category, somehow magically confers upon them the glory that the genuine article possesses.

Back to the porn. On reflection I knew there was more than sexual orientation categories of porn. I knew for example, that men were either breast men, leg men, bum men. But that also there was something in common for ALL men.

All men don't like women wearing sweatpants.

But that's another story.

Don't Lay a Heavy Scene on Me Man!

2011-08-18T20:09:00.006-04:00

For a moment, Gerhard glimmered with an enjoyable righteous anger. Perhaps there was indeed a way to blame all of this on her. Wasn't that what a wife was for? Isn't that why people get married? Someone to blame things on." - From Helen Schulman, A Day at the Beach

I'm livin' in the 70's
I feel like I lost my keys
Got the right day but I got the wrong week
And I get paid for just bein' a freak - Skyhooks, circa 1974

Me in Teheran, Pre Ayatollah Khamenei

There was something weird and wonderful about the Seventies.

A time when one could say, tongue in cheek, "Don't Lay a Heavy Scene on Me Man!"

A time when white people could be hip. A time ...

A time long gone, "The seventies too far away".

AbbA. Boomers' kids. The time before the Iraq War, before "Weapons of Mass Destruction", before acronyms, before texting, sexting, before 911, before FaceBook. Before. Before before.

What was the cut-off point? The point between innocence and cynicism? Between then and now? Between the faint hope of idealism and the (false) pragmatic of NOW?

Was it the election of Ronald Reagan? Was it the Gulf War? Thatcher? Y2K? I don't THINK so.

I think that the Baby Boomers had become jaded. For sixty years we've ploughed ahead, against all odds.

And in New-York-Speak - "What can I say?"

I really DID love the Seventies. It was a pause in the world of trauma. The Sixties, Vietnam, had left us and we didn't know about - or even imagine - Iraq, WMD, 911, bail-outs, Osama, Obama.

A time of innocence - The Seventies.

I was a married woman with small children in the seventies. A woman who thought it was a smarte-arse thing to say, with touch of irony - "Don't Lay a Heavy Scene on Me Man!" I used to say it in the heat of arguments with my then husband. It annoyed hell out of him. At that time it was small things like this that gave me pleasure.

Seventies words. I heard a few of them the other day, at of all places, my dentist's.

I really like my dentist. He's so "Seventies". I always ask for nitrous oxide, as I am a nervous dentalphobe. He'll have his assistant put the gas-mask on me, and then disappear to check his email, or to put his iPod on Frank Sinatra. Yes, his idea of music isn't seventies but the rest of him is. And then he'll come back and ask, "Are you stoned yet?"

Last week when I was leaving, and saying goodbye to the receptionist - another "seventies" person, I became flustered. I was attempting to organize a date that suited me, but she was concerned I should come earlier. "Leave her alone," my dentist reprimanded her. "She's freaking out."

The Seventies. Poor cousin of the Sixties.

I think it's time for a Seventies' revival.

Now what was the great Australian politician's slogan in 1972?

"It's Time!"

Pre Thatcher. Pre Reagan. Pre Taliban. And perhaps now more importantly, pre Tea Party.

And talking about the Tea Party, I have just one more thing to say:

Don't lay a heavy scene on me man!

Keeping Up With Mister Jones

2011-08-14T23:32:00.014-04:00

I have literally understood 11 words that Bob Dylan has sang tonight. Hoping to make it to 15 before the concert ends. - Justine_B, Twitter

Omg he's playing a song I know! (And I still have no idea what the heck he is saying.) - Justine_B, Twitter

Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now. "My Back Pages", Bob Dylan, 1964

Adrian Rawlins Statue, Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

A hundred years ago I lived at 43 MacArthur Place in Carlton, a university suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

Most of my life from that time is now a blur, but I can remember one day perfectly. Actually it was a night. The night before we (me, my boyfriend and my boyfriend's friend) went to see Bob Dylan play at Festival Hall. My boyfriend and I were in the upstairs bedroom, when we disturbed by rapping on the front door. We let our house-mate, A, answer it.

Next thing we hear he was bounding up the stairs. "The Band is here, The Band is here!" he was yelling.

We told him to get lost and kept on with what we were doing ...

I must admit I was a bit naive. "The Band". "What band?" I was thinking.

Later we discovered that the "The Band", Bob Dylan's Band, had in fact come calling. Looking for a guy called Adrian Rawlins who we were sub-renting the house from.

Adrian was a "beat". A poet. Something rare in Melbourne in the sixties. You can see a statue of Adrian if ever you go down Brunswick Street Fitzroy. Or you can just look at a photo of it here!

Our house-mate A invited The Band in, and they stayed a while. But I didn't get to meet them. Pity ... I have my priorities in a better order nowadays...

But I did get to see Dylan perform the next evening. For the first part of the concert he played the old folk-songs - "Come Gather Round Children ..." and so on. And then after interval, out came the electric guitars, and the boos.

A bit short of forty years later I saw Dylan again, this time at a concert at Madison Square Gardens in New York. And again last night I saw him at a concert at Jones Beach, New York.

The Jones Beach Crowd - Waiting for Dylan

It's hard to belive he is seventy. Even though we had "orchestra" seats it was hard to see what he looked like.

But it was a great concert. And yes, his voice was raspy and it was a bit hard to make out the words. Especially as he was giving new interpretations of old songs such as "Ballad of a Thin Man" and "Tangled Up In Blue". But he was Dylan. And that was enough for me.

And the audience - it was the same it was in Melbourne 1966, but yes something has happened and we do know what it is - we have all gotten OLD! I looked around at the crowd. Yes, Melbourne Australia plus forty years!

Something was weird. Yes it did look like the crowd at Festival Hall 100 years ago. And that was the problem. Melbourne. Australia. The "White Australia Policy".

Where were the black people? There weren't any here at Jones Beach. How could that be?

Back in Manhattan I called a friend. A black friend. And I asked her how come there were no blacks at the Dylan concert. They are all gone, she told me. He was popular with blacks in the sixties and early seventies. Those people have all gone.

All of them? I wondered. And what about us white people? It's all getting too confusing. And too scary.

Native American at Babylon Fair, New York

On the way back from Jones Beach we stopped at Babylon where we saw there was a Native American fair. We decided to check it out.

It was a sad sort of fair, much like the "street fairs" that they have in Manhattan where imitations of imitations are displayed by people pretending to be fair people. The only difference here at the Indian Babylon fair was that the vendors were selling fake feather instead of fake glass earrings. Some of the so-called native Americans sported blonde hair and pale faces. But there were a few of the genuine article. Here's one. Sleeping.

As I wandered through the crowd I pondered and wondered about the Jones Beach concert.

And realised. I've traveled 12,000 miles and a hundred years and the times just ain't a'changing.

Hallelujah

2011-08-10T23:23:00.010-04:00

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
Hallelujah
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah - "Hallelujah" - Leonard Cohen, 1984

I've titled this blog, "Hallelujah" because of a man on the Q32 bus yesterday. The Q32 runs between Queens and Manhattan in New York. And it so happened that "Hallelujah" became a word that I - a non-religious person - actually heard, for the first time used in every-day speech.

I decided to write about the Queens-Manhattan-bus New York moment, but what could I illustrate it with? Then I remembered, one of my favorite people, Edie Langley, singing it. And I checked on YouTube. Sure enough, here it is.

Hallelujah!

I particularly like how she sings, a là anglaise as does Leonard Cohen, the writer of the lyrics, "But you don't really care for music, do you?" with "you" pronounced as "you", rather than as the American "ya".

But that's not what this post is on about.

Back to the man on the Q32.

The bus was about 3/4 full and we'd just pulled out from the last stop in Queens, just before the non-stop ride to Manhattan, over the Queensboro Bridge which is now renamed "The Ed Koch Bridge". A few people straggled on board, the last one being a male, born circa 1948. Oh no, another baby boomer!

He looked a little worse for wear. But don't we all? I'd rate him two points up from homeless - 6 on a scale 1:10. His clothes were thread-bare but clean and his hair was gray and longish. No one would have noticed him. Until the driver turned in his seat and said, "Excuse me, I don't mind if you can't pay the fare, if you can't swipe your card, if you don't have a card, but you could at least acknowledge me and not just walk straight past. Say something!"

Mr Baby-Boomer-Not-Paying-a-Fare took absolutely no notice and proceeded to find a spare seat and to sit in it. So the bus driver said it again. Louder.

This time, Mr Not-Paying-a-Fare reacted. "What do you WANT me to say?" he asked.

"Anything," said the bus driver.

"Hallelujah!" responded Mr Not-Paying-a-Fare.

There were a few minutes silence.

Then the driver looked a bit remorseful. He turned to me. "All I want is to be acknowledged," he said. I nodded sympathetically.

He waited a while and then addressed Mr Not-Paying-a-Fare again. He, the driver, obviously felt bad. Maybe Mr Not-Paying-a-Fare was intellectually-challenged. Maybe he had Alzheimers. Maybe he was really poor and embarrassed.

Turning to Mr Not-Paying-a-Fare he asked, politely, "Are you OK, sir?"

And after a slight pause, the response came.

Mr Not-Paying-a-Fare replied,

"Hallelujah!"

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

The Blame the Boomers Game

2011-08-07T15:26:00.027-04:00

"The time has come, Senator Barack Obama says, for the baby boomers to get over themselves." - Shushing the Baby Boomers, Journo John M Broder

Baby Boomers, Manhattan, June 2011

"The time has come," Obama said,
"To talk of many things:
Of jobs and tips and too-much-tax
Of mortgages and things
And why it's all the boomers' fault
And whether pigs have wings." ^*

A hundred years ago at Mac.Robertson Girls' High School in Melbourne Australia, we had a headmistress called Miss Barrett. Miss Barrett used to glide around the school's corridors as if she were balancing a book on her head. I remember thinking she was really really old, and fantasized that she had never married because she'd lost her fiancé in the trenches at the Somme during WW1.

Looking back with the benefit of experience, I now think she never married because she was a world-class bitch, but back then I was a bit of a romantic, and no doubt a more tolerant human being than I am now.

We had school assemblies where we'd all have to stand when she entered the hall. She'd be wearing an academic gown and would stand facing us on the stage, fixing us with her stare so that we'd all freeze. We were not to move.

When she commanded, "Sit!" we all had to sit down at precisely the same time. And then she'd give us a lesson in morality.

Vinyls for Sale - Manhattan June 2011

I remember little of her talks, except for one. It struck me at the time and became etched in my memory because it was so blatantly unfair. I was all into fairness at that time.

I used to get really annoyed for example, when the RI teacher would tell us that when we died god would judge us, and depending upon our score would let us into heaven. Or not. I was pretty sure I'd be unjustly accused and not be allowed into heaven. "Why should it be just up to HIM!" I'd think to myself. Of course that was when I thought god was a man as women's lib was yet to enlighten us "gals" as Miss Barrett called us.

I'd imagine myself arguing with god. No way was I going to take his decision lying down. I imagined everyone else going along with the decision and me, alone, defending myself. I'd been studying the Reformation and thought of myself as a modern-day Martin Luther, standing on my principles.

I'm pretty sure now that I know why I was like that. My mother worked and I had to manage the buying of groceries and purchasing house-hold items. So I was constantly having to return items to the store, and being a kid, the customer-service people would argue with me. I'd stand my ground. Martin Luther was my hero. And I envisaged that it would be much the same when it came time for god to assess my earthly performance. A celestial customer-service sort of thing.

The only morning assembly morality talk that I can remember in any real detail, was when Miss Barrett explained to us that we were all "bad gals" because SOME of our parents had brought us up according to (horror of horrors) an American! - a pediatrician called Benjamin Spock, whose book "Baby and Child Care", published in 1946 advocated such "permissive" practices as feeding babies 'on demand'. According to Miss Barrett, this had had the effect of turning us into selfish gals who wanted instant gratification and if we weren't careful we'd all get pregnant and never go to university.

At MacRob - Indulging in an Apple

Little did Miss Barrett know, but she was a trend-setter. A woman before her time. Later Spock was to be blamed by the Right for causing the anti Vietnam war demonstrations, Janis Joplin, the contraceptive pill, drop-outs, sit-ins, and the Summer of Love.

And now, as we near retirement age, the Miss Barrett's of this world are multiplying daily. You can see them in the Tea Party and on the morning news. You can see them on websites, on television; they are everywhere. Even in the Whitehouse. I wrote about Obama's dislike of baby boomers way back in 2009 in Slowing the circle down - like a rolling stone.

Quite frankly I'm getting a bit sick of it. After ALL we did - fixing the post WWII mess, marching for peace and civil rights, working long hours and slaving over hot stoves. And what thanks do we get?

None. Zero. Zilch.

It's gone on long enough. Now it's apparently OUR fault that the U.S. budget isn't balanced. It's our fault that the U.S. debt ceiling is a ceiling. We are responsible for S&P downgrading the U.S. economy. We are responsible for S&P NOT downgrading the U.S. economy earlier.

Are baby boomers to blame for debt crisis? writes Ed Hornick of CNN. But wasn't it boomer Bill Clinton who balanced the U.S. budget?

"Nice going Baby Boomers/Tea Partiers! The Great Depression 2 is here! Looks like you are going to lose your 401K and hopefully job! You voted in these idiots last November and now you have to face the consequences of your actions!" wrote someone signing themselves as "Nice going Baby Boomers/Tea Partiers!" on KHTV.com's news article, about S&P downgrading the U.S. Credit Rating.

Generation Xers Looking for Bargains, Manhattan, 2011

Last week while I was getting ready to go to work, I was listening to CNN. "One good piece of news," a twelve year-old anchor was saying, "with the baby boomers having to downsize their apartments in order to retire, there are lots of bargains to be had! They are forced to sell at rock-bottom all manner of things, dinner sets, couches, appliances."

Uh-err, watch out my fellow boomers! The vultures are out. I'm reminded of a movie I saw back in the Dark Ages. Some Greek movie or was it Zorba? Where people in black pretending to be her mourners, descend upon some old lady's house fighting over her posssessions.

"But we aren't dead yet!" I cry!

As they say in New York, "What can I tell you?"

"O Boomers," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?"
But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd beaten every one.^*

* Apologies to Lewis Carroll (Jabberwocky)

What Sort of Candle Are You?

2011-08-04T21:57:00.043-04:00

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind - "Candle in the Wind" 1973, Bernie Taupin

Let me take you down,
'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever - "Strawberry Fields" 1966, John Lennon

Tourists at Strawberry Fields, New York

I ask this question, not because I have written a FaceBook app on the topic, but because recently a friend of my brother's described my brother Tim's life as, "like a Roman Candle". And I got to thinking ...

Thinking about how often the image of a flickering dying candle flame is evoked when trying to describe the brief life of one who has gone too soon from this world.

The song "Candle in the Wind" is just one example. Interestingly it was written by Elton John's writing partner, Bernie Taupin, about Marylin Monroe - Norma Jean. Taupin got the idea for the title from a quote he read about Janis Joplin. And of course, over a decade later, in 1997 Bernie Taupin rewrote the lyrics so that the subject was Diana Spencer. Elton John played the new version at Princess Diana's funeral.

Still, I was surprised when I read in an email that a friend had described my brother's life as being "like a Roman Candle, spent in a fantastic rush."

It's not how I saw my brother at all. He was a laid-back kind of guy. He worked for himself most of his adult life, as a carpenter. "Like Jesus," he'd say when people asked him what he did.

I remember Tim musing one night about "careers". He saw them as something "other people had", but not himself. "When I think of 'career', he explained,"I think of a car careering out of control." I laughed. So Tim.

George Harrison Remembered - November 2001 - Strawberry Fields

I remember too when Tim lived in a spice cupboard. Sleeping on a narrow shelf. Of course this description of his lodgings back then were conveyed to me by my mother who had a dry sense of humour, and moreover, was given to exaggeration.

Tim said he was happy to live in a spice cupboard - "like the Vietnamese boat people," he explained. "If it's good enough for them, then it's good enough for me." But then, he had a dry sense of humour, and moreover, was given to exaggeration.

I actually visited him there later, at his spice cupboard abode. We met outside the spice cupboard in a communal lounge-room. I was wearing a watch. Tim said, "Can I have l look?" and so I took it off and handed it to him. There upon he picked it up and smashed it with a hammer. "You don't need to be ruled by TIME," he said. Really.

Perhaps Tim's friend of the Roman candle remark merely meant that Tim lived life to the full. A Roman Candle. I googled it, and I vaguely remembered them from my childhood - splattering sparks randomly in all directions. Like "Tom Thumbs". I think I was scared of them.

Tim, St Kilda Beach, 1960

Yes my brother did "live life to the full", as they say. He wasn't a conventional person, but he wasn't a Roman Candle speeding through life like a gush of shooting Roman candle sparks.

I lived with Tim for a while when we were both adults. At a time when we were both recently separated from our partners. In the evenings we'd sit out in the back yard with his mates. Like his dad, Tim was a beer drinker.

I'd stay relatively sober, as I had a salaried job. A "career" in fact. But towards the end of the evening even Tim would quit drinking and lay back, looking up at that wonderful Australian night sky - so filled with stars - sinking into ... his strawberry patch.

"Strawberry fields, forever," his friends would say as they departed for the night.

A Lennon admirer, yes. A Roman candle? I can't see it.

And what sort of candle am I?

Or, more to the point, what sort of candle are YOU?

Beetroot
beetroot to yourself
Lettuce
lettuce all get along
Bean so good
getting to know you
Peas to you
and all of your family.

Tim Juliff (1950 - 2011)

On Heaven and Paisley

2011-07-31T21:57:00.028-04:00

Sugar,
Oh, Honey Honey.
You are my candy girl,
and you got me wanting you. - The Archies - "Candy Girl"

Window Display, Dylan's Candy Store,
Midtown Manhattan

There's a whole new - well maybe not so new - candy world out there. A world of glitz and child pageantry. More so in America, though I was shocked to read yesterday that it has reached my old home town of Northcote - a suburb of staid Melbourne - a city not generally known for its crassness.

Pageantry - that word used to conjure up images of Medieval processions, of men in gold black brocade doublets, of young men, pages, unfurling banners. Of heraldry. And of guilds and illuminated manuscripts. I guess these were what people watched for entertainment, when taking a break from ploughing the unenclosed fields, fighting Goths, and discussing Magna Carta over goblets of mead.

Well, not really, but you get the picture.

I have known about these child pageants ever since JonBenét Ramsey made news - JonBenét Ramsey the child beauty pageant contestant who was discovered murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado in 1996. JonBenét's untimely death spawned numerous TV documentaries and print-press articles - scathing stories about the little girls who enter beauty pageants, dressed up like Barbie dolls with big hair, fake cosmetic teeth and spray-on tans.

But recently I have become even more aware of their existence, thanks to my friend Dee who introduced me to the American TV series "Toddlers and Tiaras".

"Toddlers and Tiaras" is a must-watch. I even stop playing Angry Bird to watch it. Sometimes I even put it before "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as I scroll through my DVD cable recorded TV titles.

Toddlers and Tiaras Website

Whoever does the editing of T&T should be nominated for a Pulitzer. The media is the message!

Every episode features two or three contestants and their parents, with cameramen following them around detailing their lives from the preparations at home, to their appearances at the pageant competitions, invariably held in Georgia Tennessee and Arkansas.

What I like about T&T is the way the image of a screaming toddler will be shown with a voice-over of the mother proclaiming how much little Kerleigh (sic) "just LOVES" being a pageant girl.

"She's our little pride and joy," a proud parent will say, only to be followed in the next screen with his off-spring saying to her proud daddy, "You stink, shut up!!!".

And then there are the classics, such as "What is Paisley having for lunch today?" from her Mommy, as the camera zooms in to little four-year-old Paisley picking her nose up to the third joint of her index finger.

"Everyone who knows Paisley calls her "The Little Turd" comments her proud mother. Proudly!

As well as its educational non-value, T&T is worth watching in that it keeps me up with the latest trends in American girls' names.

A while back, say in the late eighties, when using place names for females given names was beginning to become a bit too old-hat - when just about everyone under 12 was called "Chelsea" or "Britanny" - trend-setting parents, not wanting their child to be just one of the crowd, found the solution - a way of making their child stand out - by misspelling the kid's name. So the made up name "Caylee" became "Kayleigh", Masison "Maddyson" and China was on the baptismal certificate, misspelled as "Chyna".

Manhattan Kids, Au Naturel

But there's a limit to how much one can misspell without completely making the origin unguessable. Like "Kaylezs" from the misspelt "Kayleigh" which was once "Caylee". Or "Grayce" for "Grace"

For a while there, after the birth of Paltrow's daughter, Apple Blythe Alison Martin, I thought that we might be in for a run of fruit names. Pineapple, Avocado and Peach. I can just hear it, "Now Pomegranate, please put on your INSIDE voice now."

Or numbers - as in "Seven" - Seinfelds' George Costanza's favourite kid's name. "Now Six, give Five back his Tonka toy!"

But now ... now it's just words. Like "Heaven". And "Paisley". And "Puddle". I was going to quote Michael Jackson's "Blanket", but that is just a little too normal ...

And yet, even these aren't good enough. We need to misspell the words! I just came across a "Triniti". And a "Saryniti" (from Serenity???)

And there was I, 18 years ago, cringing at Australia's "Jaydon"s and before them, at the "Wayne"s and "Leanne"s. It could be worse. Instead of living in America in 2011, I could be living in Australia circa 1980.

Well, maybe not ...

The Middle Ages are looking better every day. Or should I spell that My-dell Ajays?

A Word By Any Other Name

2011-07-27T21:45:00.035-04:00

"Pretty good. Pretttttttty, pretttttttttty, pretttttty good." - Larry David (many times)

"I'll take your words and be gone
Your words and be gone
I'll take your words and be gone" - Lady GaGa - "Words"

"Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" - Mae West

A Man of Few Words (East Harlem)

That's what I like about the internet. You wake up and find out about so many weird otherwise obscure things.

Take the "thebookslut" for example. Yes, that's right, The Book Slut. I follow her on Twitter.

A new vocabulary, a new lexicon, a new whatever ...

Ms Book Slut recently "tweeted", published in 140-or-less characters, that there is a German word for "excess weight gained from emotional overeating" - "Kummerspeck" - literally, grief bacon. I "followed" Ms BookSlut's link to the Dental Floss Archives. I wanted to find out more.

It's easy to feel like Alice in Wonderland on the internet. Who knew? And who knows where you'll end up? One minute I'm following Ms BookSlut and the next I'm reading about obscure words and cyber-flossing.

I read that there is a Yiddish word, "Luftmensch" - to describe social misfits - meaning an "impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person." But of course I knew that!

And so I got to dreaming. I remembered three weeks ago seeing Larry David in a sneak preview of an episode from his newest "Curb Your Enthusiasm" series. What a genius! I firmly believe that if the world had even 2.5 more Larry Davids, then we'd have peace and justice and whatever else a rational mind could envisage.

Instead we are all here and now and reliant on HBO for a modicum of sanity ... Scary!

More Words (Mid-town Manhattan)

But back to "words". Three weeks ago when the preview of "Curb Your Enthusiasm's" "Palestine Chicken" episode was shown on the huge screen at 92Y in New York, it was followed by a panel interview hosted by "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams" with Larry David and cast. They had a captive audience. One of the topics was the concept of "social assasins". People who call a spade a shovel, who (albeit unconsciously) hold without thinking, non-politically correct views.

This was appropos of the sneak-previewed episode, "Palestinian Chicken" where Larry is accused of being a "social assassin" when he criticizes the wife of a friend who verbally, audibly says 'LoL' instead of just laughing.

I remembered my mother at a party I'd organized. A reunion of sorts between her, my mum, and her best friend. They'd parted ways a decade or so back, and I and the best-friend's daughter had organized a "reunion" at my house in Melbourne.

Shades of "Palestinian Chicken" - Mosque Demo

The reunion party was in full-swing when my mother and old-friend Norma arrived. By cab. They were bickering. Not so odd for old friends, but my mother, after paying an inflated fare, complained to the driver in no uncertain terms. The "best friend", who wore her left-wing heart on her Gucci sleeve had, according to both of them, turned on my mother, telling her she was a "social fascist". A reverse snobbery. Somehow the cab driver was out of bounds - immune from criticism by virtue of his being a member of the working class.

Well, the 'social fascist' remark got several laughs from the party animals, but I remembered at the time thinking, how unfair.

What's in a word?

Sometimes I think words are being re-cycled. Fitting. Green words!

Look at this...

What is it? A jumper (sweater USA) with an outside pocket.

Now for some reason - I forget why - a few months ago I looked up the definition of "pocket" and discovered that the "pocket" was invented a hundred years or so ago, as a bag- or envelope-like receptacle inserted underneath an article of clothing close to the body and used to hold small items. To access the "pocket" the outer clothing had to be bunched up, and this was obviously inconvenient. Eventually some bright soul had the idea to make a slit in the outer-wear to allow for easy access. Still later another bright spark had another idea - the outer sides of the bag were attached to the sides of the slit - and so we had the "pocket".

Time passes and no doubt the advances of 200 hundred years ago are now forgotten. A designer here in New York has stepped back centuries to come upon the idea of reversing the trend and putting pockets back as separate, unattached items, although on the outer side of the outer garments. Which just goes to show, that ...

"If it wasn't for pick-pockets I'd have no sex life at all." - Rodney Dangerfield.

Not really, but it was the closest pocket quote I could find!

Very very very occasionally I have occasion to read a dead tree book, and recently, while reading one, I come across a word, a word that neither Book Slut or Mr. Dental Floss had uncovered. I'm reading "People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman" not available in Kindle. It's set in Japan. I read about the word "jikokenjiyoku" which apparently means "the wish to expose oneself and have the self-exposure well received". And yes, the context is sexual.

Now who was it said, "In the beginning was the word"????

On Google+ and Coke Bottles "On the Beach"

2011-07-20T23:39:00.037-04:00

If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there - ©1967 John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas

Way back last century, a movie was made called "On the Beach". It starred Ava Gardner and some other people whose names I've forgotten. I could Google them of course, but why bother?

The point of my remembering "On the Beach" lies in one particular scene - the Coke bottle scene.

To explain - to those younger than 100 - "On the Beach" is set in Melbourne, Australia post 1959, after a global nuclear war has resulted in life being destined to be destroyed in a matter of months. People in Melbourne, including a number of Americans from various branches of the US military, are aware that most of the inhabitants of earth will soon die. Except that is, those at the very bottom of the southern hemisphere, although they too will eventually sucumb to radioactive poisoning resulting from the nuclear fallout. The idea being that, though started in the northern hemisphere, the radioactivity will move south due to gravitational pull (a bit suss ...). And so ... those people in Melbourne are still alive but are the last survivors and their end is nigh.

I remember when the film was being shot in Melbourne. We'd all grown up in a city that no one had ever heard of. A cultural no-man's-land. A nowhere place. Pre-internet, pre nearly everything. But here we were, courtesy of Stanley Kramer, at last, on the map.

The star of "On the Beach", Ava Gardner, on arriving in Melbourne was quoted in the Murdoch press as saying that Melbourne was "an appropriate city in which to film the end of the world". This was before Murdoch-gate and so we all believed her.

Anyway, I digress. There's a scene in "On the Beach" where the US military in Melbourne start receiving Morse code signals from a US military station in San Francisco. Yep, Morse code. Ancient history - Melbourne - a place I grew up in, getting end of the world messages! Who is sending the messages? The military men (there were no military women back then) scratch their crew-cuts. Could it be that San Francisco was not after all destroyed by nuclear war?

The men meet - and military-men-like - ponder. A DECISION is made. The Americans based in Melbourne are asked to volunteer to take a submarine to the Northern hemisphere to INVESTIGATE. And so the hero - was he Gregory Peck? - says goodbye to Ava Gardner. He and his men must depart. On the submarine, the "USS Sawfish", to see if there is anyone still alive in San Francisco. And WHO is sending the messages.

Of course, this means Gregory Peck will never see Ava Gardner again because the end of the world will happen before the sub can return. There's just enough time before the radioactivity kicks in, for the "Sawfish" to reach San Francisco to see who is sending out the Morse code signals.

The Sawfish arrives in San Francisco Bay and the best of the crew (in looks) volunteers to venture out in radio-activity-land, to find the source of the Morse code messages.

Half a Cinema-Scope day later, the brave marine volunteer locates the source of the signal. The neck of a Coke bottle has fallen into the pull-ring of a blind in an office window at Marine Head Quarters, and lying on the desk top the bottle is swaying slightly in the breeze (the window is open), hitting sporadically on a Morse code machine, causing it to transmit random Morse code signals.

So much for intelligent life.

Now if I were a film director, I'd do a re-make. I'd do the same Coke bottle thing but I'd set the Morse code machine somewhere in the Kalahi Desert. A Bushman would find the Coke bottle and would be in awe. He'd take it back to his small village and the village people would fight over it.

The Bushman would get worried about the trouble it was causing. He would then decide to return the Coke bottle to God - where he thinks it came from. A white school teacher assigned to the small village would fall in love with a white anthologist and have words with a despotic revolutionary. A clumsy biologist would fall for the teacher but would not think he had a chance against the despotic revolutionary. All good stuff. Meanwhile the Bushman would look really cute and get into lots of adventures. Eventually the clumsy biologist would win the affections of the white school teacher and - well you get the picture.

But I digress again ....

Back to reality. The reason I got stuck on the Coke bottle image this week is that I joined Google Plus.

I set it all up. Did my profile thingy. Set up my "Circles", although I did not have enough people to make a "Huddle".

And then I waited.

And nothing happened.

It felt like something, but what was it? I'd been there before ... I wondered how to describe my "status" my 140 characters. My geo-location. My whatever.

I wracked my brains. I posted threads, strings, snippets. To no avail. No one was listening. No one replied.

And then all became clear.

I was like the Coke bottle in "On the Beach" in San Francisco last century - emitting meaningless syllables to a place 12,000 miles away.

When was "On The Beach" made? In 1959 according to IMDB. That's about right.

1959 - 2011. Nothing much has changed.

... - .- -.-- - ..- -. . -..

The Beige Women of Trak

2011-07-16T19:34:00.020-04:00

"Is that why you always look like the cat who swallowed the King Island double cream" - Trude to Prue, on discovering Trudy is having an affair with her husband, "Kath and Kim"

"In popular Australian culture, the name Toorak has become synonymous with wealth and privilege. The suburb has long had the reputation of being Melbourne's most elite, and ranks among the most prestigious in Australia. It has the highest average property values in Melbourne, and is one of the most expensive suburbs in Australia." - Wikipedia Toorak, Victoria

Sunbakers, Upper East Side, New York

"I have two groups of friends," Cara mused. "There are the normal ones like you and Ruth, and then there are my golf ones."

Normal? Me? I don't THINK so. But to continue ...

Cara lives in Melbourne. We were chatting on the phone. "My golf friends are all rich and they all have lemon-colored straight hair and live in Toorak or Balwyn. And it is weird," said Caro, sounding bemused. "They say things like, 'The government wants to get money from the rich with a new tax for the bushfire victims.' This really annoys them but of course the government must get money from the rich. They are the ones with the money. How can the governement get money from the poor?"

That's Cara for you. Logical with a touch of naiveté. Delightful.

She picked up speed. "And they don't have to go to work. And they don't believe in global warming. And they talk in loud voices, a bit like they're English but they aren't."

Sunbaker, Melbourne, OZ

I could picture them. The beige ladies of the Melbourne suburbs of Toorak aka "Trak", and Balwyn.

It occured to me today that there's no equivalent of these beige ladies in America. I've lived in old Greenwich Connecticut. If there were beige ladies of the Toorak variety, one would expect to see them there. But no. Or perhaps on Manhattan's Upper East Side. But no again.

For the first time I think I've discovered something that exists in Australia but not in America!

Of course America isn't just Manhattan and Connecticut, though perhaps it would be better if it was ... But I've lived elswhere in the States. Oklahoma for example - "where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain" - Beige Oklhoma ladies in tweeds? Trudys and Prues? Wives of wealthy stock-brokers and plastic surgeons? "Old money"? I don't THINK so. Or in New Jersey? Don't even go there!

For my American readers who don't know any beige ladies and cannot imagine them, here are two Trak wannabes from the Australian comedy, "Kath and Kim". You can see Prue and Trude on the left.

Americans, you just don't know what you're missing!

Factlets, Factoids and Verbal Texting

2011-07-10T20:54:00.021-04:00

I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh - John Lennon, 44 years ago today

New York Man

I HEARD the news today ... well I heard and saw on CNN today - on Fareed Zakaria's GPS excellent panel show thing - that (though I have not authenticated it) in China TWO cinemas a being built EVERY DAY.

Amazing, I thought. An interesting factoid. Or should that be, "factlet"?

And I got to thinking - about how not only are two cinemas being built in China every day, and about how 50 airports are being built in China every other day - but even more noteworthy - is that in America, several new words are being invented - Daily.

"Factoid"? Why not "Factlet"? I googled the definition.

"Factoid" - "A brief or trivial item of news or information".

What's with the "-oid" suffix?

I googled "factoid - suffix" and found, "Used as in mainstream slang English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or some otherwise slightly bogus resemblance." Whatever ...

It is getting more difficult daily, to keep up with the new "words". Just yesterday someone commented on something I'd written in an email, with a "<8>". WTF?

I had to look up the online internet slang dictionary. Apparently "<8>" means "grin".

Why not just write "grin"? Or even just write, "I am being funny"?

Last week I saw a preview of this season's Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm". As well as the preview there was a panel discussion with Curb's main players. To borrow a Davidism, it was pretty, pretty, pretty, funny!

Silent Texting, West Village

A character in the preview was a rather annoying wife who, instead of actually laughing, would exclaim. "Ell Oh Ell" (LoL). Larry is asked by the wife's husband, to attack her for this annoying habit. Larry is reluctant. Why is it always left up to him to point out people's annoying habits? But eventually he's forced to agree, to go along with it.

"Why don't you just laugh?" he asks his friend's wife - "What's with the 'LoL'?" "It IS the way I laugh!" is her response.

But "LoL is verbal texting," he counters.

Later he gets annoyed at the husband. Why is it up to him, Larry, to point out the absurdity? Why does everyone expect him - Larry - to tell the home truths? I'm expected to be a "social assassin", he complains. Why don't you complain yourselves? Why is always ME?

Social assassins, factoids, LOLs, verbal texting.

What can I say?

LoL!

Close Encounters of the Corporate Kind

2011-06-30T22:21:00.013-04:00

Tim: "Like, we know this amazing guy Barry, who's an excellent guy, which we've referred at, and, um, like Barry runs these whole Earth bush workshops, right. What he does..." - from Brainspace' - Tim and Debbie

There used to be a really clever and amusing Australian comedy duo called "Tim and Debbie". In OZ. A hundred years ago.

Tim and Debbie recorded a number of skits and one of my favorites was about their friend, 'Barry'. 'Barry' allegedly made a fortune by driving people to a place in the outback of Australia and "leaving then there".

This was before reality shows, long before shows such as "Survivor". People would pay good money for Barry's wilderness workshop experience - no doubt under the misguided illusion that they were being given the opportunity to "find themselves".

In perfect bogan dialect, the upward inflection pitched exactly right, Tim and Debbie let it be known how much they admired 'Barry'.

"Right, wilderness workshops. He gets a group of really, like, aware sort of committed people who want to find themselves, and he drives them out into the middle of the wilderness ... he just leaves them there you know, and it's really, and,and he only charges two hundred dollars, you know.It's really excellent, you know."

I was reminded of Tim and Deb the other day when a friend of mine launched into a description of something weird and less than wonderful. Something which I hope is not going to be a "trending topic" - to borrow a Twitterism.

Now this friend is not normally given to exaggeration, and so I am inclined to believe her, even though what she described to me appeared to belong on the West, rather than the civilized East Coast where of course, being intelligent women, we both reside.

According to the friend, there's a new sort of human evolving. A "Job Shrink" aka a "Career Facilitator".

And this is what such people do - for $$$ of course.

Career Facilitators are invited in to corporations who wish to improve on their return from their more highly-paid employees. Once embedded in the organization, the facilitators invite everyone who has anything to do with the targeted employees to attend sessions behind closed doors - one session per highly-paid employee. The only person missing during these sessions is of course, the target - the highly-paid employee.

Once the door is locked the participants are given free reign to say whatever they like about the said employee. All comments are noted and sometime later the victim is called in to hear the news. Oh, and all comments are of course treated as confidential.

I'm not sure what the goals of these work-place encounters are supposed to be. They seem a bit along the lines of the nineteen seventies 'encounter groups'. I hated those groups. You were expected to sit there and listen to people being boring about what was wrong with their own lives and brutally honest about what was wrong with yours. BUT - with encounter groups - you were present when everyone got stuck into you. You KNEW who said what, and didn't have to unwittingly invite enemies to your next party.

Not so with the career facilitator sessions. The victim knows WHAT people said about them, but not WHO said it. You just have to cop it sweet and try to learn from your supposed - or maybe imagined - errors of your ways.

Ah, progress! We have obviously come a long way since the nineteen seventies! Back then encounter groups were up-front and personal.

In 2011 they are behind closed doors and corporate.

The Crusts of Life

2011-06-25T17:50:00.022-04:00

Anyway for my sanity I am writing here. I am sixty-five years old. Past the Beatles song. By some accounts that is young. But when a man wakes on his fortieth birthday he may safely say he has no youth ahead of him. - from "The Secret Scripture", Sebastian Barry

So it seems now. Who was I then? A stranger, but a stranger who hides in me still, in my bones and in my blood. ... The girl I was. - from "The Secret Scripture", Sebastian Barry

The Girl I Was

I hate endings. And it is for that reason I don't eat the crusts of things. This annoys the hell out of people, especially people who sit opposite me in restaurants, or even worse, who cook for me.

I won't eat the crusts of anything - even things that other people think do not have crusts. Like pizzas. Like veal scallopini. Or french fries. In fact the only food I can think of that doesn't have a crust, is ice-cream.

I used to think the way men reacted to my leaving the crusts was an indicator of their tolerance to others. My first husband, for example, used to put less and less on my plate, hoping that one day I would eventually eat all of it. I didn't. No matter how small the serving I always left something and eventually he gave up. He was very negative. Very intolerant. Very first-husband.

Later I took as a lover, a Dutchman. The opposite of first-husband he gradually served me more each day, hoping that although I would leave something, at least I'd get my nourishment. Very tolerant. Very Amsterdam. Very lover.

My second husband has a German background and like the aforementioned men, he also cooks for me. And as with the other two, I always leave a bit. Second Husband serves the same amount every time. And of course I always leave a bit. And every time he has the same comment. "Is there something wrong with it?" Very consistent. Very German. Very second-husband!

With the Dutchman

But where was I? Yes I was talking about the ends of things and how I hate them. The last full day of a vacation is unenjoyable. It doesn't matter where it is - in Paris, Bali, London, it's the pits. It's not even worth having. I'd sooner leave one day earlier. But that would only mean the bad last day would come sooner. You just can't win!

The last day before going on vacation. I just hate that day too. I wake up thinking what's wrong with today? And then I realise it is the end of the time before my vacation. Suddenly I will love being where I am. Be it New York or Melbourne. Why am I leaving? I love this place I think as I reluctantly, joylessly throw a few things into a suitcase, looking forward not to the vacation but to my return home.

I hated my last day of high school. I lingered for years at university, never quite knowing when I'd finished there, and thus not only postponing, but also hiding the awful last day from my awareness.

The last day of being a kid. I even remember it. I was on my way home from school, walking along Glenhuntly Road in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick when I saw a rubbish-bin lid on the sidewalk. I jumped over it, a real spring in my step. I won't be doing that again, I thought sadly. Good-bye my last day of childhood. I was growing up.

And now I'm thinking it is the end of an era. A friend emailed me. She was going home from her home in the UK to the home of her childhood, in Australia. A house in Elsternwick in fact. Her mother still lives in the same house there, the house she was in when I first met my friend. My friend is going home to unpack that house of whatever it has accumulated for over sixty years, as her mother is now elderly an moving into a nursing home.

"An end of an era," she wrote.

Yes, I hate endings. Especially end-of-era ones. I can't just push them around on my plate like they are pizza crusts. I can't hide them from the sight of husbands or lovers, shoving them surrepticiously under the mashed potatoes.

My second husband once lost all the desktop icons on his PC. "Where did they go?" he asked, quite seriously. I laughed and laughed.

But when it is about me, it ain't so funny! My youth. Where did it go?

I am so consciously aware of this lost youth that it worries me, annoys me rather. I've gotten into the habit of waking up in the mornings with the thought, "Oh no! Not YOU again!" Of course if I woke up as someone else I'd probably scream in terror ...

Instead I just laugh at myself, get up and start the day.

Dreading of course, the end.

Gabriel Gateau and the importance of je ne sais quoi

2011-06-23T23:04:00.019-04:00

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day - Eugene Raskin

Paté escargots soup de jour
cordon bleu chic coiffure
fait accompli maison
crème de menthe Marcel Marceau
meringue blancmange Bardot
gauche gay Paris garçon - "The French Song", Greg Champion

There used to be a man, a chef in fact - long before the days of the Cooking Channel, "Master Chef" and Scott Conant - called Gabriel Gaté. I used to listen to him wax lyrical about the virtues of the French, on Radio Australia. In fact he's still around - I just googled him. Gabriel Gaté. Apparently he was awarded "La Croix de Chevalier dans L’Ordre du Merite Agricole" in 2000. Wonders will never cease.

I used to call Monsieur Gaté, Gabriel Cake - well, Gabriel Gateau - because quite simply, he annoyed the hell out of me. I just couldn't hack his French accent, because I thought - and I still do - that he was putting it on. Anyone who pronounces "cabbage" as "cab-arge" after living in Australia for over a hundred years, just has to be fake.

Those were the days. When I lived in Australia, I used to listen to Greg Champion and the "The Coodabeen Champions" every Saturday morning. They had a footie show on the radio. Not that I knew or know anything about footie, but the Coodabeens could make anything funny.

American Cuisine, Michigan

In those days I actually listened to the radio. Now, in America, I've just never gotten the hang of it. The channel numbers I mean. And "FM" and "AM" - are they even meaningful here? All I know about American radio is that there's some awful guy called Rush Limbaugh on it, which is enough to turn anyone left of Genghis Khan right off.

Rush Limbaugh or Gabriel Gateau. Who is worse? Reminds me of when my son was little and he'd keep coming up with silly questions like, "Who would win? A dog with one eye or a rabbit with a broken leg?" And, "Who would win? A cat with three legs or a monkey with the measles?" I didn't know then and I still don't.

Even worse was when my daughter of the time asked me to send her to France so that she could "get a French accent".

Humor. There's nothing like it to keep one sane. And even though I am 12,000 miles away from some of the funniest people in the world, here in America humor is alive and well.

In a few weeks I'm going to see my new idols - Larry David and Susie Essman, from the excellent comedy series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm". They, along with their co-star Jeff Garlin are appearing at the 92nd Street Y, to celebrate the launch of the eighth season of the show. I can hardly wait.

So who is funnier, Greg Champion or Larry David? Greg Champion with a broken leg, or Susie Essman with chicken pox? Scott Conant eating raw red onions or Gabriel Gateau at the Tour de France hosting the "Taste Le Tour"?

Stay tuned ....

The Magic Faraway Tree and the Vegetable Song

2011-06-20T23:11:00.029-04:00

Beetroot
beetroot to yourself
Lettuce
lettuce get along
Bean so good getting to know you
Peas to you and all of your family - Tim Juliff (1950 - 2011)

So that's it then? His father has gone and there's nobody ahead of him. Nobody higher than him on the tree. - Caryl Phillips, "In the Falling Snow"

Memories of Dandenong Road, East St Kilda (OZ)

It doesn't take much. This time it came upon me completely unexpectedly. The all-consuming sorrow.

I was walking to the local park; taking photos for my blog. I crossed York Avenue. Jay-walking New York-style. And there it was. Right in front of me on the sidewalk. I almost bumped in to it. A tree with a big hollow in it. I was reminded.

My mind went back a hundred years. Dandenong Road, Australia - on our way to Windsor State School. I was nine. My brother Tim, five. Latch-key kids. There was a tree somewhere along Dandenong Road. I remember it was a plane tree. The things we remember ... The tree it intrigued us. We'd stop by it every day. We believed that there were elves and goblins in the hollow. Children of the Enid Blyton generation, we imagined we'd found "The Magic Faraway Tree" of Blyton's story for children.

Tim's gone now. The last time I spoke to him was shortly after Japan's big tsumami and I guess that's why Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki" song is indelibly linked in my mind to my brother's death.

When our mother died Tim told me that we were now orphans. I hadn't thought about our new status. And now it's even worse. I'm at the top of the tree, as the novelist Caryl Phillips puts it. And there's no Saucepan Man, Dame Washalot, Angry Pixie, or any of Blyton's characters up here. I'm all alone ...

Too many reminders. I'd just about gotten over the hollow tree association when I read a Facebook friend's status for today. "It was exactly three months ago that the tsunami hit the north-eastern coast of Japan," she wrote. So many months away. It was just one week after that tsunami that I spoke to my brother for the last time. We discussed the problems with the nuclear reactors in Japan. I'll call you again in a few days, I told him. Within two days the cancer had taken his hearing. We never spoke again.

And then - today is the shortest day of the year in Australia. The anniversary of something I cannot discuss here, but the anniversary is now painful, though what it celebrates was, at the time, joyous. Every 21st of June I take stock. And now in 2011 the stock is added to.

The sentiments expressed in my brother's "Vegetable Song" are admirable, and if we could all follow them, our lives would be richer.

Richer, yes.

But longer?

Obviously not.

Tim was just 61 when he left us.

I wish all of my friends "peas". And peas to their families too.

Remember to eat your veggies! ASIF Tim did! I remember when he was very little. He used to hide his beans under the table-cloth at dinner time. One day my mother caught him in the act. "Do NOT put your beans under the table-cloth!" she admonished. Straight away Tim pulled them out from under the table-cloth and put them on his head.

Peas, brother.

The Gentle People of New York

2011-06-19T18:20:00.061-04:00

I love those dear hearts and gentle people
Who live in my home town
Because those dear hearts and gentle people
Will never ever let you down - "Dear Hearts and Gentle People", Sammy Fain and Bob Hilliard, 1949

New Yorkers Sun Baking at Carl Schurtz Park

Yesterday I decided to walk across to the Carl Schurz Park to see and hear the "Sing for Hope" piano there. Sophie Matisse (yes she's the great granddaughter of Henri) and a number of other New York artists have painted a bunch of pianos and we are all invited to come outside and play. The painted pianos have been set up all over Manhattan, and looking up the "Spring for Hope" website" I saw that the closest was on the East River at the Carl Schurz Park. I took my camera, thinking to take a photo of our "local" piano for my readers.

On my way to the park I couldn't help noticing several signs of the honesty and civic responsibility of my fellow New Yorkers. Traits not often associated with the Apple people.

So I took photos - as EVIDENCE!

In the space of a few blocks I saw several items of lost property hanging on railings, put there by whoever found them, in the hope that they'd be claimed. You can see a couple of them in the photos above. The red cardigan in particular looks very stylish.

Volunteer Dog Walker, East 92nd Street

More evidence of New York's community spirit was found closer to the the park on 92nd Street and York Avenue. Volunteer dog-walkers from the nearby ASPCA walking "rescue dogs". I took a photo of one of them resting at a small plaza.

At the park. It was a good day for being outside and there were heaps of people sitting in the shade, reading, sun-baking, roller-skating, walking and riding bikes. I looked everywhere but could not see or hear any evidence of a piano. It was hot and I was too lazy to ask anyone if they'd seen one.

I turned back. I walked along 91st Street this time. I stopped at "The Vinegar Factory", a designer supermarket, known for its expensiveness and pretentiousness. Now I DID hear music. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. "So Upper East Side," I was thinking, when it occurred to me that perhaps I was being Upper-East-Side-pretentious for recognizing it.

Somehow hearing classical music playing at supermarkets reminds me of people who brew coffee when their house is open for inspection - the aroma is said to attract buyers with money. Enough already. I bypassed the one hundred brands of virgin olive oil, ducked past the ducks à l'orange, bought a cornish hen, and left.

Manhattan for Yard Sale

A few meters on I and almost blinked and missed a Manhattan-size yard sale (Australians, read "garage sale"). I bought two glass tumblers from the Polish girl, who seemed as Poles do "in charge". I accidentally gave her two dollar notes and a twenty instead of three singles - I hate the way that American notes are not color-coded like Australian ones! The nice Polish girl called me back. I thanked her for her honesty and walked on.

I strolled along, thinking about New Yorkers and how we are much maligned, then stopped to take my final photo of the day.

A bike, still chained to the railing, sans wheels.

Oh well, who said that New Yorkers were perfect?

Do Baby Boomers Have Aims?

2011-06-16T20:15:00.020-04:00

"Siamo qui per servirla could be another option", with a hint of sarcasm - from Word Reference Forums on a good Italian translation of "We aim to please".

Straight out Kerouac, Boomers at a Manhattan Flea Market

We were talking about aims. Well, HE was. I wasn't. "He" being my husband.

It was over dinner and he told me his current life aim. "Oh," I said. Yes I know. I can be very uncommunicative. It's a family trait on my mother's side.

"So, what's YOUR aim?" he asked. I replied that I didn't have one, and attempted to change the unwelcome subject.

In fact the question puzzled me. Are we meant to have aims? "Life aims", I mean; because that was the sort of aim my husband was talking about. I've never had one. A grandiose aim - I should be so lucky.

But nevertheless, aimless as I obviously am, I dwelt upon the subject later. Perhaps it was an age thing. If you don't have your whole life in front of you, why have an aim? Unless it is an aim to stay alive. Which is sort of a default aim and doesn't count. I dwelt and I dwelt.

And I think I've got it worked out.

I grew up hardly knowing where the next meal was coming from. I had a single mother at a time in OZ when there was no supporting parents' benefit and women earned very little. There were stretches when my mother was unemployed. And there were no unemployment benefits back then. So that just getting to the next day was an achievement.

Me and my Bro. Outside Wilson Hall, Melbourne University

I remember other girls at school having aims. Like - "I am going to be a lawyer. "I'm going to be a pediatrician." I was in awe of those girls. I just hoped that I'd get a scholarship to go to university and wouldn't have to be a tram conductor. I did not think of anything beyond that.

Melbourne used to have tram conductors. They were invariably women, employed to walk up and down the tram (Americans - read "trolley") checking that everyone had a ticket, and selling tickets to those who did not.

What got it into my sixteen year old head that should I fail my final year at high school I'd be a tram conductor, I don't know. But it did. Negative reinforcement. It spurred me on and I did go to university, enrolling in subjects whose content I had no idea of. I enrolled in psychology because I liked the look of a boy who had already enrolled in it. He was later to become my first lover. So much for sensible planning. Still, the psychology has come in handy ...

I suppose I've just drifted on, ever since. I remember my mother asking me, "Are we shallow?" and I answered yes. We didn't think of the big things we were to busy worrying about the small. Being able to achieve big things never entered our minds.

Send your aims to HERE!

I DID have a fantasy though. I dreamed I'd get engaged in New York to someone who looked like a young Cary Grant. He would propose on a patio belonging to a penthouse apartment in Manhattan. I would be wearing a pink taffeta dress and would look like Debbie Reynolds. In this fantasy I was employed. Some sort of office job. The job didn't play a part in the fantasy - apart from existing. But I do remember that the office building was on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and there were revolving door at the entrance.

Weird. I did end up in Manhattan and I actually worked on Fifth Avenue in a building that had revolving doors.

But it wasn't planned. It sort of just happened.

I suppose if forced I COULD say I had an aim. It would be to be aimless. To accept what the world has to offer and to have the basics needed to survive.

Oh yes. There's another hidden aim. An aim that dares not speak its name. More like a wish. I would like to see or even hear of my grandson. But that's another story ...

And unachievable.

No wonder I do not have an aim.

So yep, I don't have an aim. If any reader has a surplus of them, please send them on.

I can offer them a good home. In a building in Manhattan.

That has revolving doors.

For a poet and a one-man band

2011-06-11T19:30:00.019-04:00

And every stop is neatly planned.
For a poet and a one-man band. - Paul Simon, "Homeward Bound", 1966"

Second Avenue, June 2006

The MTA, the New York Transit Authority, has a novel way of squashing criticism, that I hate to say, must have been dreamed up by a woman.

The residents up New York's Upper East side are angry at the state of the sidewalk and bus services on Second Avenue. And rather than tackle the problem that has been going on for five years and will continue it seems for at least another five, the MTA has apparently sought to solve the problem by showing that it doesn't exist.

First the problem.

Every weekday morning, along with hundreds of others, I stand on Second Avenue waiting.

I hate to think of the millions or billions of dollars spent by the City of New York in lost productivity. Because time spent standing, waiting for a bus is time wasted. And there is an increasing amount of time now being spent by New Yorkers standing waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Five years ago we had bus shelters and space. Look at the photo above. I took it in June, 2006.

94th Street and Second 2006

And here's another, taken around the same time.

Those were the days. People living near 93rd and Second Avenue had a choice of the two bus-stops. Now we have one.

We, the locals, would not be peeved if we had to put up with the inconvenience for a year or two, but it has been six years to date and the end is not in sight. When will we have our sidewalks back? The latest news is that we MIGHT have them back in 2016, but seeing as the completion date has already been pushed back several times, I doubt it.

Look at the bus-stop we have now. One would think that in New York in 2011, that "temporary" should not mean ten years.

Same bus-stop, 2011

And to add insult to injury the number of buses servicing the area has been substantially cut. AND a new system has been put in place. There are now "Select" buses.

"Select" buses have flashing blue lights and do not stop every stop. "Select" buses need to have wide sidewalks where they stop as tickets must be purchased within one hour from machines on the sidewalk at the bus-stops.

I don't know what it is like to ride in a "Select" bus. That is because the sidewalk where I live is too narrow for the ticket machines. To get a "Select" we'd have to walk to either 103rd or 87th Street.

So every weekday morning I stand with a dozen or so other frustrated people, watching the Select buses fly by with their blue flashing lights. Last Tuesday I counted five Selects as I waited for our "Local" bus. The first two Selects had a few people in them. The next were virtually empty. Someone was counting the commuters hailing cabs. He got to eight and then our bus was in sight.

And now for the "solution".

A few weeks ago, as a result of the many complaints it seemed we had achieved a reaction. Perhaps something was going to be done. For one morning as we took our seats on the bus we saw a pretty young woman holding a clipboard. She was from the MTA and was surveying the Second Avenue commuters.

Lining up for the bus - Even New York kids wear black

I watched her and listened. She was like a breath of fresh air as she approached the commuters, selecting the least hassled and ... was I imagining it .... preferring middle-aged males. I listened to her questions, and their answers.

"What do you think of the bus service?" she asked sweetly.

"Oh it is wonderful," came the replies.

"Did you have to wait long this morning?"

"Oh no, hardly at all!"

"Has the service gotten better or worse?" she smiled.

"Oh better, definitely".

Ad so on ad nauseam and nauseatingly.

The women next to me sneered. "Listen to the old fools," she grumbled.

I however, was impressed. I have great admiration for the use of creativity in solving problems.

Suddenly a majority of the people were contented with the lack of service . The men were happy.

Even I was happy. I admired the solution. And I liked the young woman.

Plus, she had a lovely smile.

On Being Self Referential

2011-06-04T17:24:00.004-04:00

A word that describes itself is called an autological word (or autonym). This generally applies to adjectives, for example sesquipedalian, but can also apply to other parts of speech, such as TLA, as a three-letter abbreviation for three-letter abbreviation". - Self Reference.

I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. - Woody Allen

Self Portrait at Tiffany's

I have always been a bit vague when it comes to the exact meaning of self-referential. I think it used to refer pretentiously to works of art that created by people who are only interested in themselves. An Asperger's kinda thing ... Come to think of it, it is perhaps an "it's all about me" existentialist thing - a New York thing even. I wear black because I am ... but I digress.

I came to be reflecting on the meaning of "self referential" last Saturday round noon, when my cell phone rang. It was a stranger on the other end of the line. And the conversation went something like this.

Stranger: "Hello, is this 646 XXXXXX?"
Me: Yes"
Stranger: "Well you have taken my number. My number is 646 XXXXXX."
Me: "No, I have had 646 XXXXXX for eight years. It is MY number."
Stranger: "No it is mine and now we both have the same number and I just this minute dialled it."
Me: "Well, in that case, why aren't you answering your call?"
Stranger: "Because YOU picked up!"
Me: "OK. I'll hang up now, and you can call it again and I won't pick up this time and you can talk to yourself."
Stranger: "OK!"
[CLUNK]
A few seconds later, my phone rings. I ignore it and play Angry Birds on my iPad.

A Touch of Color at Dumbo

The ringing eventually stops and I forget about the whole bizarre thing. But about an hour later the phone rings again and I pick it up. It is the stranger back again.

Me: "Please stop calling me. I am busy."
Stranger: "But you have my number."

And so on ....

In the end he went away, but I just couldn't resist. I checked my call log and clicked on the number that had last called me. The stranger's number. No answer. "It's me," I voice mailed, "have you figured out your phone number yet, or am I YOU?".

Some time later Mr Stranger actually called again, but this time, to apologize.

Apple Store, Fifth Avenue

Meanwhile I am left self-referentially confused, and no wonder. For lately I seem to be surrounded by some very strange people!

I have a native New Yorker friend who thinks she is the only person in New York dressing in black - my Moon Follows Me" friend.

I have a stranger who thinks if he dials my number he is calling himself.

But perhaps the most strangest is my non-existential referential neighbor who recently bought an iPad 2. Worried that a man she knows might mess with it when she went away on vacation she hid it. Somewhere. Where, she has no idea.

Two Aussie New Yorker Philosophers

If can be proven, as some philosophers think, that an object needs a relationship to an observer for it to exist, does this mean that it ceases to exist when no one can see it? Certainly my friend, let's just call her Jay, left her iPad alone in her room, and while she was away in China it ceased to exist - for her, anyway. What is odd however that it still doesn't exist and she's she's back.

I think I'll put Jay in touch with the man who doesn't have the same phone number as me. He can help set up her non-existent iPad with MobileMe so that she can find it next time she loses it.

Stay tuned ...

Dance for Joy

2011-05-29T23:38:00.057-04:00

Tim (center)

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day - Mary Hopkin 1968

One day we'll all be oral history.

But until then, let us not forget.

The sixties, the seventies. And perhaps even the eighties.

Listen.

"Changes", by Tim (Juliff).

Forgive me for being a trifle nostalgic. I have my reasons.

Recently I have been put in touch with a number of my late brother's friends. Of course, there've been there all the time. As have I. But sometimes, unfortunately, it takes a death ...

Never really close, but never really far apart either, we went our separate ways, Tim and I. But at heart we were at one. Children of the sixties. Flower children. Well, more Tim than me, but even me, the older sister.

Kate (Taj Mahal)

Tim's not here any more. But his friends are, and there are so many of them. Some I remember. Heather for example, who turned up at our mother's house with a hundred daffodils stuck in her gumboots. He'd met her in Melbourne's City Square. And Frances from Canada, who named her son after my brother. "Timothy". And so many others. Peaceful and serene. Or noisy and confronting. Heaps of people who willingly accepted me into their lives.

Like so much in life, we accept it when it is there. A given. A thing appreciated but at the same time taken for granted.

And then suddenly it is taken away. And we who are left behind realize what we have lost.

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco 1976

How come I didn't know that my brother was part of Obama Sign Watch? Or that he'd played at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco? I'm finding out just now, from those who knew the Tim that I didn't inquire into, the Tim who I didn't - for whatever reason, know about - as they come forward. Like me. Missing him.

I wonder what else I missed out on? What else did I overlook, thinking it was always going to be be there?

The flower children of last century.

Yes, we thought it would never end.

Let's savor what there is left.

And get by, with a little help from our friends.

All things must pass.

The Moon Follows Me

2011-05-25T22:35:00.028-04:00

I used to believe the moon was following me. When I was in the second grade, I was taught a little about the moon, but still didn't believe it. A reader of I Used to Believe - the Childhood's Belief Site

Moon Over Melbourne

She dresses in black ...
Last week I wrote about New Yorkers dressing in black. Well, it was about more than that - but also about the dressing-in-black-thing and New Yorkers ....

And then it just so happened a few day's after I published my "She dresses in black", that a friend of mine, Cordelia, who happens to be a New Yorker, and who - well it goes without saying, dresses in black - called me.

She was so excited, she related, when she saw the title of my latest post, "She dresses in black". "Oh I was just so SURE," she prattled, "that it was about me! I dress in black and it is my FAVORITE color and so I thought ...."

Hmmm. What's that word? "Chutzpah"? So New York. Almost as New York as dressing in black. I was forced to wonder - hadn't my New York friend noticed that she was not alone in her shades-of-gray outfits? Did she somehow see the rest of New York as being in color? If she did she'd be, as New Yorkers put it, "very unique". And we all know, there's nothing unique about being "very unique". In any case, had my friend not noticed the 18.9 million other people wandering about, "very uniquely", in shades of gray?

She did of course realize, upon reading "She dresses in black", that as in the Beatles' song, "Baby's in Black", there ARE other people in this world, who dress, "in black." However I suspected that she was being modest and uncharacteristically non-confrontational, in agreeing that Lennon and McCartney had someone else in mind when they wrote the song.

I should have known better.

Our conversation drifted. We started to talk about next weekend - Memorial Day weekend. "It's my birthday that weekend," I managed to interject. "We could have dinner."

"Yes let's," she said. "Now I will only go to Tribeca. I REFUSE to go elsewhere. You'll just have to get a hundred subways and meet me there, in Tribeca. No way am I going to the upper east side!"

U-huh? The birthday girl lives on the upper east side! I try to point this out and am answered with a laugh. "But I don't want to go to the upper east side. Didn't I just say?"

Now, I have a number of friends in New York - well TWO at least apart from Cordelia - who have indicated that "we must do something on your birthday". But they are from another country - Miami, Florida and Perth, Australia. That is - they are NOT from - New York!

So ... I reiterated to Cordelia - New-Yorker-Cordelia, "There are some nice restaurants on the upper east side, and unlike Tribeca, not so far from Perth-person and Florida-Not-New-York-person. Or from me."

Cordelia answered in a flash. She was SHOCKED. "Oh but I won't go anywhere but Tribeca!" she New-York-yelled. "I just will NOT go to a boring place!"

"But it is about MY birthday," I protested. To no avail. "But I ONLY go to Tribeca!" Cordelia continued to insist.

You can take the gal out of Australia, but you can't take Australia out of the gal. I remembered my heritage and refused to give up. So "Hey," I said, becoming uncharacteristically assertive. "This is about 'ME!' NOT you!".

It was then that I got the idea. "I'm going to BLOG THIS!" I asserted.

I could hear the smugness on the line. Cordelia was VICTORIOUS. I'd paid her a compliment. I'd acknowledged her New York-ness. Her "her-ness". She was so proud.

The moon was following her.

She dresses in black

2011-05-22T02:00:00.024-04:00

She thinks of him and so she dresses in black,
And though he'll never come back, she's dressed in black.
Oh dear, what can I do?
Baby's in black and I'm feeling blue, - Lennon McCartney 1965

I live in New York. New York, where you can wear anything you like. As long as its colour is a shade of gray. Which is a GOOD thing. Or is it?

Me and Tim - Just out of the schoolyard!

I never really took much notice of it - the color thing. Except as a way to identify the U.S. tourists that is. In their vibrant pinks, yellows and lime greens. Walking three abreast. Slowly. Encumbering the sidewalks.

But recently, wearing black has been on my mind. Nothing to do with New York, or with tourists from Dallas and Cleveland ...

You see, recently I lost my brother. My baby brother. At 61 yes, he was and still is, my baby brother. It was not the first family death to hit me. My mother died when I was in America. I wrote about my experience in I Haven't Always Swum in this Water. And my father died an expat, in New Zealand - when I was still living in my native land, Australia.

One expects one's parents to leave. But not so a younger brother. Which has led me to have to cope with and think about, grieving. Grieving for the loss of someone too young to go.

The hardest thing about such grieving - well maybe not the hardest, but it's up there - is having no one around to talk to about it, no one who is fair game, no one who could be expected to understand. Because those people who would understand - those who would "get it" - are also grieving, and the last thing one would want is to burden them still further.

I don't know. I don't have a grievance councellor. I haven't bought a book on how to grieve. But I do know that there's something missing. It isn't the book. It isn't the councellor.

What is missing is the attribution. The proclaiming. The thing that people did centuries ago, when they donned the black arm-bands, the widows' black. The announcement that - "I am grieving". A way of telling the world, "I am in grief".

In this modern world we are all expected to "carry on". ASIF! A few days off work. Organizing the funeral. Talking to family and friends. The obituaries. The service. And then ... it is - "back to normal".

Except it isn't. It is pretend.

And so I am glad I am in New York. Well, sort of. I can wear black and proclaim my grief. But who will notice? I'm just one of the crowd. My grief is a fashion statement to those who do not know me. But to those others?

From now when I look at my fellow black-clad New Yorkers, I'll wonder. Are they like me, grieving? Or are they just dressing in the New York shades of gray, the New York uniform?

For me the black is a proclamation of my grief. Yes, last month I lost my brother Tim. A person whose only offering to this world was "love". That was his ideal. His hope. But I suppose that in reality he was just like all of us - doing his best; nothing special.

And I suppose that is what it is all about. Living life truthfully. Nothing special.

RIP Timothy John. (1950 - 2011)

The True Story of Men in Dresses

2011-05-15T16:42:00.014-04:00

Such is life. Ned Kelly's last words before being hanged

Come, all my hearties,
we'll roam the mountains high,
Together we will plunder,
together we will ride.
We'll scar over valleys,
and gallop for the plains,
And scorn to live in slavery,
bound down by iron chains - The Wild Colonial Boy

Kelly Territory

I am currently reading True History of the Kelly Gang by fellow Australian New Yorker, Peter Carey. I'm finding it disappointing - heavy going, at times annoying - written as it is in the style of a dyslexic semi-literate, full of unnecessary abbreviations and ungrammatical sentences. I'm all for realism but not at the expense of readability ...

But I have plodded on, determined to finish it. And I've learned at least one factoid for my efforts - where and when Australian men started dressing up as women.

Ned Kelly of True History of the Kelly Gang, was the leader of a bush-ranger gang in Victoria Australia in the late 1900s. He is viewed by Australians as either a criminal or a hero, depending upon political predilection. He is the subject of legends. He was hanged on 11 November 1880 at the Melbourne Gaol for the murder of a policeman.

Sidney Nolan - "Ned Kelly", 1946

Kelly wasn't the first bush-ranger to be admired for his exploits. Before him a number of first and second generation Irish Australians were popular for their activities especially those showing contempt for the "English" and the establishment as represented by the courts, police and landowners - the privileged "squatters".

Kelly has become part of Australian culture, a sort of Robin Hood, epitomizing the underdog. Even the date of his death, November 11 has become important in Australian history. November 11 1918, official end of World War I. November 11 1975, the sacking of Australia's Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam by Elizabeth Queen of England's representative John Kerr.

And paintings. The most famous being those by Australian artist Sidney Nolan. In most of these Kelly is shown in his now iconic "armor".

A child's depiction of a bush-ranger called 'Khat'

Most Australian children grew up hearing about bushrangers and the Kelly Gang. It was essential reading in primary school.

What is not so generally known however is the cross-dressing behaviour of at least one member of the Kelly gang, Steve Hart. Movies about the Kelly gang do not show this aspect of bush-rangers' lives but apparently Hart was not alone in his cross-dressing behavior, which included riding his horse side-saddle. Earlier, in 1835, escaped convict, Edmund Carmen,was caught by police in countryside near Wollongong dressed in a woman's gown and cape. He was found guilty of improper conduct, given 50 lashes, and sent back to Sydney, being ordered never to return.

Nowadays people are used to seeing Australian men in drag. The 1995 film, "Priscilla Queen of the Desert brought to world attention the high profile enjoyed by drag queens in Sydney. And of course Australia's most famous cross-dresser, Dame Edna Everage has been camping it up for decades. More recently Chris Lilley plays a Year Eleven snobby/bitchy girl called Jai'me in the Australian TV comedy series, "Summer Heights High".

Sidney Nolan, "Steve Hart", 1945

I'd seen Nolan's painting of the Kelly Gang's Steve Hart, but until I started reading Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang I'd not been aware or the origin of the bush-ranger dressing-up-as-women thing. According to Carey, and a number of other sources I've since googled, it all harks back to the "Molly Maguires." - an organization of Irish miners. They were was dubbed the "Molly Maguires," after a group of Irish peasants who dressed up as women to antagonize their landlords.

Why they did this is unclear, as is the origin of the name. But the practice was apparently common in Ireland with a number of groups, mostly peasants who were anti-authoritarian due to the tyranny of English landowners. Like Ned Kelly the "Molly Maguires" represented themselves as custodians of the community.

I sometimes wonder what Ned and his gang would think of modern Australians. Yes it's true, men still dress as women. But Australia is still not a republic. The "Colony" of New South Wales and the "Colony of Victoria" are no more. But just over 35 years ago the Queen of England's representative, on the anniversary of Ned Kelly's hanging, dismissed Australia's democratically elected government.

The outgoing Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam stood on the steps of Australia's Parliament House and said, "Well may we say "God save the Queen", because nothing will save the Governor-General!"

As Ned himself said, with his last breath, "Such is life".

The "Risen Christ" - Really Mister Ellis!

2011-05-07T00:59:00.015-04:00

I sort of think I knew Bob Ellis when I was at uni in Australia, a hundred years ago. Well maybe not. But I know his name. He's an aussie journo and this week he commented on the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

He wrote for The Australian Broadcasting Commission - the 'ABC' - "How secretive and shabby the Americans are".

Ellis wrote, "There was a magical-realist quality to Osama Bin Laden. He looked like the risen Christ, and was often thought dead and came always back to life. His broadcasts needed always to be authenticated because the CIA wanted him dead. He’d humiliated them so enormously they kept saying he was dead. He was 'on dialysis', they asserted, wrongly; he had to be dead by now. 9/11 was so clever. He had to be dead.

And once again they are covering up, and in denial." - Bob Ellis 2011.

Well I dunno Bob. I haven't exactly followed your career. But I certainly don't remember hearing your outcry against the killings in Somalia or Darfur.

I read a bit of what you had to say about the Americans going after Bin Laden, Bob. But not all. I just couldn't hack the misinformation.You spoke of Osama's "widow". I wondered why you used the singular.

Yes I agree, in a perfect world, Bin Laden should have appeared in a world court to be tried as a killer. But the world isn't perfect. So let us weigh up the odds.

Do you prefer to lump the president of America, Barack Obama, with the likes of George W and even worse, Palin and Trump? Believe me, he is not of the same ilk.

Along with other Australians, I was here in New York when the Twin Towers went down on Bin Laden's orders, murdering nearly 3,000 of my fellow New Yorkers.

If I am going to be outraged at the killing of the guy who ordered this, at the guy who did not believe women should be educated and who thought gays are evil, then I am a fool.

The fact remains. Bin Laden wasn't a nice person and it is not a perfect world. If we want to be outraged there are plenty of people to outrage against. And Barack Obama isn't one of them.

He has my vote. And I am proud to say it.

Looking up acronyms and pretending to be pretentious

2011-04-09T18:05:00.011-04:00

Looking up acronyms

Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright," and there was also KY, "know yuse," KG, "know go," and NS, "nuff said."From "What does "OK" stand for?" The Straight Dope"

It was a simple enough question. I asked it on Facebook a few days ago. About something that has puzzled me for some time. "Why do Americans put heaps of "throw cushions" on beds when they are never used?"

It elicited this answer, "Colour, Kate. And the feeling of luxury that cushions bring. They are a PITA at bedtime."

Huh? "PITA"? WTF does "PITA" mean? I almost LOLed. Instead I looked it up in Urban Dictionary and found it means "Pain in the Arse".

Of course I'm none the wiser. I still don't know why Americans put cushions on beds when they are not to be used. For color? I don't THINK so. Why not simply hang them on walls. Or better still, buy a Joan Miró print. And where are you meant to put them when you go to bed? On the floor? Seems I'm never going to know.

But the non-answer did make me think. About looking up acronyms that is. I don't mind looking up a real word when I am not sure of its meaning, but an acronym?
Next there'll be dictionaries for icons. Take the floppy disc icon for "save". There's a debate going around the internet as to whether to keep it or not. Suggestions for all sorts of images to replace it have been put forward. I even read somewhere the suggestion of a damsel in distress icon...

Pretending to be Pretentious

We'd had nothing but a salad and dry bread in a hour and a half...is this true, Italian-leisurely dining? I seriously doubt it. From "Poor service...we were sadly disappointed - a review of Mario Batali's Manzo, New York

If you want to pay a lot of money for poor service and mediocre food I must recommend "Manzo" in Eataly. It's noisy, cramped and the waiters are arrogant. Or perhaps they are only pretending to be.

We didn't complete our meal. I sat with my "Arista" (I had to look it up - there's a culinary guide on the last page of the menu) while my husband waited for his antipasto to arrive. Too cool to write anything down, the waiter had incorrectly memorized the order and so I sat, eating alone. I put a bit of badly chopped fennel on my bread plate so Jo had something to accompany the Simboli Riesling - which at $44 for the bottle compared favorably with the value for bucks of the food.

We'd been at Manzo for about an hour when the first course arrived. The spaghetti al dente was al hard and when my husband complained he received not a replacement, not an apology, but rather an argument from the maitre de. We decided to leave. Why throw good money after bad? By this time we'd been there about one and a quarter hours. We were both hungry. We asked for the check. And got ... another argument. $128.17 is after all a bit to pay for a meal when you have to go elsewhere to actually eat.

After much fuss the guy in charge agreed ... we only had to pay for the wine. At $88 I suppose we should have should have been relieved.

It was raining and dark as we made our way to the subway.

Thank you Manzo! What was meant to a pleasant evening in New York on my husband's last night here for two months - he's commuted back to OZ - was a complete disappointment.

I haven't had such bad service and waiter arrogance since I dined at Toto's Pizza restaurant in Melbourne Australia, a hundred years ago.

Stay tuned.

Paperback Writer

2011-04-02T22:24:00.014-04:00

But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer. - "Paperback Writer", Lennon/McCartney, 1966

Bus People, New York

"When's Easter?" my husband who commutes to New York from Australia, asked me. I have to be understanding but at times it's hard.... "How would I know?" I replied. "I live in New York. I know when Passover is."

It can be so difficult - being bi-cultural. Not to mention being "old" and straddling two centuries.

For those of us who still remember last century, there is so much to take into account in communicating with the alphabet generations. I have to straddle not just continents and cultures, but generations, and at times it can be overwhelming.

Take reading for example. It seems like only yesterday when I aspired to having floor to ceiling bookshelves, a library room even, for my "books". And now ... well two years ago I gave most of my books way to charity. And by 2010 I couldn't even remember what it was like to read a dead tree book.

Subway People, New York

Then last week I couldn't get interested in any of the novels on my Kindle and I remember that a few months back I'd bought paper book, "Slammerkin" by Emma Donoghue. I had become addicted to Donoghue after reading "Room", and later her "The Sealed Letter". I could not get enough of her work and at the time Slammerkin was only available in the US in hardback, so I'd bought it.

The excitement of actually reading it faded rapidly after the ungainly thing arrived - so heavy, so last century - and so the hardcover sat on a shelf, gathering that very fine Manhattan dust that envelopes everything that stands still for more than a second.

I've been reading Slammerkin for several days now, and though it isn't a patch on "Room" it is still worth the effort of lugging it around town like someone from the 18th century where the novel is set.

I spoke to friend on the phone. "I am reading a paper book," I confided. "It's terrible!" She agreed. I have to physically bookmark when I leave off reading. There's no real-time dictionary. What IS a "slammerkin" anyway? I expect to be able to look up words anytime, any place, anyhow.

Cab People, New York

And it is SO heavy. And big. Last night coming home from work the bus was even more crowded than usual. Plus everyone was carrying umbrellas and we were all squashed together damply. I looked around. People were either staring ahead or texting or talking on cell phones. Or reading on electronic devices. And there I was taking up 1.2 bus seat spaces as my elbows were spread out in order that I was able to open my hardback volume.

I was forced to wonder what it would be like reading an illuminated manuscript while sitting on a plough in 16th century France, while everyone is reading Aelius Donatus's "Ars Minor" in codex - courtesy of Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg.

Quelle horreur!

Hanging on the Telephone

2011-03-27T17:58:00.002-04:00

Hey boy that's Balwyn calling
Get off the phone and get out of Balwyn - Skyhooks - "Balwyn Calling"

There's something about me and phones. I grew up in phone-less houses and didn't live anywhere with a phone until I was about 34.

First I didn't have a phone as my mother only earned half the wage of a man because until the seventies, women were not considered to be equal in Australia. After I left home I didn't have a phone because I was a poor university student living with other poor university students. And then it was because I was doing the post-university Australian thing of traveling around the world.

And then I married the-man-who-doesn't-believe-in-washing-machines-or-phones ... Ten more phone-less years went by until we divorced and I had the phone put on.

Of course now I have several phones but still I seem to experience phone weirdness. Take today for example, when my friend Samantha called. My Australian friends call me and ask me to call them back, as it costs me not a cent, and overseas calling is still relatively expensive from Australia. "It's Samantha please call me back," she said.

I never remember my friend's phone numbers and usually just look them up on whatever electronic device is closest to me. But this time I was feeling lazy so asked Samantha for her number. She rattled off a number and I wrote it down on a piece of paper, then dialed it. An elderly gentleman with an Australian accent answered. He appeared to be deaf. He certainly wasn't Samantha and I just didn't have the energy to explain that someone had given me a wrong number. So I just hung up on him and looked up Samantha's number on my computer. It was nothing like the one she'd given me.

So I called her back, and told her she'd given me the wrong number. I read it back to her.

That's not my number, what IS my number?" SHE was asking ME!!!

"I don't know," I snapped at her. "But you just called me," she answered in a puzzled voice.

Turns out she'd given me her parent's number. Yes, I have been told that I have unusual friends ...

In America when someone calls you, they just say, "It's me," when you answer the phone. Sometimes they don't even say that, but just launch straight in about whatever it is that they have phoned about. It isn't as bad now that caller-ID is commonplace, but this practice used to really annoy me way back a century ago.

It's almost as annoying as when you phone customer service somewhere and after an interminable wait on hold at last you get a human and are greeted with inane questions such as "Hello, my name is Brittany, how are you feeling today?"

Or people dining alone at restaurants who talk loudly into their cell phones. There's a wonderful Larry David "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode where Larry is sitting alone at a table with a diner also alone at the restaurant, conversing loudly into his cell phone. Annoyed Larry starts his own conversation with an imaginary companion. You can see it here on the left.

Or people with long recorded greetings on their voice-mail boxes. Or people who have their little kids give the greeting, punctuated with 'ums' and 'ahs' and giggles.

But perhaps the most annoying greeting I've heard about is one a friend told me about. She has a friend who never picks up and the recorded greeting is, "Hi, this is Jenny, please call me back."

Stay tuned.

The Bridge and Tunnel People

2011-03-23T19:12:00.003-04:00

"Hey, Bridge and Tunnel Boy, chill out!" - Man in a crowd of "broker types", in a Manhattan bar to Chris, after he complains of about his rowdiness - The Sopranos (season 2)

"These are nonexistent streets, which do not actually appear until you're standing on the other side of Central Park" - Scott M. Stringer, borough president of Manhattan

For a spatially dyslexic person such as myself, Manhattan means never having to say you're lost. Well, North of 14th Street that is. South of 14th the place is a nightmarish tangle of streets with names like "Broome Street and "Bowery". Not to mention Greenwich Avenue and Greenwich Street. I can never remember which is which.

I favor north of 14th. There the streets are named with numbers and are laid out in a grid. Streets run east-west and avenues run north-south. I can always find my way.

I do get confused though about "Alternate Side Parking". What does it mean? Luckily I don't have a car. I imagine it means "park on the other side" though, that cannot be right. A tad bit recursive ... "Alternate Side Parking is "suspended on certain days, mostly on religious holy days such as Idul-Fitr and Simchas Torah. Why would this be? So confusing.

I still find it hard to remember that in American, "street" means "road". What we in Australia and in almost every country I've been to, one walks on the street, meaning in American, "on the sidewalk". The road is where the cars go.

Streets and sidewalks are very important to Manhattan people. There has been talk of dividing them into lanes like on highways. There would be a slow lane, reserved for tourists. I think a tourist lane is a good idea.

I wouldn't be surprised if they made a law requiring the bridge and road people to use the tourist lanes. Or perhaps they should be given their own bridge and road lane, as I suspect they walk a little faster than the tourists. Yes we should put them in the middle of the road.

A Melbourne "Road" called "Bourke Street"

Bridge and Tunnel people are people who come into Manhattan via a bridge or a road. People who originate from outside of Manhattan, including the four "outer boroughs" as well as Westchester County, Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey. In Australia we call such people bogans. In Melbourne we call them "people from Geelong".

Down the middle of Manhattan runs Fifth Avenue. We know it runs north-south because it is called an "Avenue". Anything west of Fifth Avenue is west Manhattan and anything east is east Manhattan. So if someone says, meet me at 323 East 79th Street, you know straight away that it is east of Fifth Avenue and because it is 323, it will be between First and Second Avenues. Furthermore, because 323 is an odd number we know it will be on the north side of the street. Not that I would advise going to 323 East 79th Street to meet anyone. I was there just over a week ago and do not recommend it to anyone who values their cell phone!

There is a special algorithm called a "street locator" which will estimate cross streets for any address on a numbered street in Manhattan. It does not work for downtown streets as they are not numbered. To find the approximate cross street, take the address number and divide by 20; then add (or subtract) the magic number from a table. For example, 660 Madison Avenue would be 660/20=33 plus the Madison Avenue index from the special table (+27), 33+27 = 60th Street. Simple!

Fifth Avenue

Occasionally however things get blurred. Recently when the Manhattan borough president was walking along Fifth Avenue by Central Park he noticed that the bus stop signs were confusing.

A stop across the avenue from East 84th Street was identified as "5 Avenue & West 84 St." Same for all the bus stops along the length of the park.

Now I know the borough president must have been walking south down Fifth, as the park must have been on his right. So HE thought he was in East Manhattan. But it turns out that maybe he was wrong.

As the New York Times put it, "Since these signs sit on the west side of Fifth Avenue, they are technically in the western zone of the street grid. So can West 84th Street exist on the west side of Fifth Avenue, even if the street itself begins on the other side of Central Park?"

I am confused. Who is to say WHERE a street "begins". Also, if the borough president was walking south, on the east side of Fifth Avenue, how could he see the bus signs on the right?

Or is my spatial dyslexia getting the better of me?

I think I'll have to actually go there to understand the borough president's problem. Like I have to turn maps around and face the right direction to navigate whoever is unfortunate to drive in a car with me as a passenger.

Fortunately GPS has solved THAT particular nightmare. I used feel sick in the stomach when some unsuspecting person would ask me to "look at the map".

Stay tuned ...

The Cell Phone, the Waiter, and the Mink Coat

2011-03-13T16:43:00.006-04:00

What I gained by being in France was learning to be better satisfied with my own country. - Samuel Johnson

Now I'm not going to tell you the restaurant's cuisine, and no I don't have a photo of the place. What I DO have is a cartoon that an Australian friend did for me for a LFNY post a hundred years ago. It is sort of apt ...

Friday evening. A Manhattan restaurant.

It'd been a long hard week and the three of us sat down to wine and dine and chat and relax. Which we did. The food was so-so. The wine was good, and if a little pricey, only to be expected. After all, it WAS the Upper East Side. Three New Yorkophiles, two of us Australian. All women. Sitting quietly discussing a range of topics from the Australian film industry to the New York - pre-sanitized New York, before the days of mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg.

Now I've been to restaurants in Europe where patrons plonk their cell phones on the table when they dine out. But even in New York, and especially on the Upper East side, it is definitely not de rigueur to use cell phones in company. But one of us - let's just call her "Lucy" - had just that evening, bought a new 4G Samsung Android phone. As I own the 3G model of the same brand, I'd helped her set it up with the basics when she'd arrived at the restaurant carrying it still in its pink and white T-mobile bag.

Around ten-ish we were starting to get ready to ask for the check when Lucy rummaged in her hand bag for her wallet. I didn't hear her phone ring but it must have vibrated. Or perhaps she just wanted to look at it - it being new. Whatever. In any case Lucy removed it from her bag and stared at it.

Suddenly out of nowhere, one of the waiters swooped on her, and saying how cell phones were banned, snatched it from her hands and proceeded to change the settings.

Lucy was speechless. I was furious. "Don't alter her phone," I complained and he laughed. I insisted, but to no avail. He changed something on it, and only then did he place on the table. He seemed to find the situation très amusant. We didn't. He started to argue with me and then the third member of our party, let's call her "Cordelia", not known for her reticence in calling a spade a shovel, came to my defense. Volubly. It was all too much. The waiter continued to stand there, giggling inanely. The disagreements and the witticisms from the council for the defense on my left, seemed to be never ending. I couldn't handle it. By this stage the restaurant was nearly empty, and I left.

Although I'd told my companions I was leaving, apparently they didn't hear me, and assumed I'd gone to the bathroom.

I found out the next day when we were having our postmortems, that they waited some time before they realized I'd gone. By then the waiters had gathered around the bar. Cordelia gave them a good dressing-down and then she and Lucy called a car service and left.

But that wasn't the end of it. On getting home Lucy decided to look at her new phone in the safety of her own apartment, and was puzzled when she saw she had a very long voice mail. It was no other than the the restaurant conversation between the three of us and the phone-snatching waiter. Quelle horreur! "How had that happened?" she asked me the next morning. I had no idea.

Later, Cordelia phoned to tell me she'd left croissants she'd bought before meeting us at the restaurant. That and a canister of designer tea.

"I'm going back for them," she told me. "Oh no!!" I was aghast.

"I hope it is cold enough. I'll go on Sunday and 'make an entrance'. AND I intend to wear my mink coat," she explained.

I laughed.

And knowing Cordelia, she'll do it with panache!

C'est si bon.

The Art of Dining in, and of Dining out, in New York

2011-03-10T23:22:00.020-05:00

Who bothers to cook TV dinners? I suck them frozen. - Woody Allen

The Next Two Day's Meals

It's taken me sixteen years, but now by George, I've got it. At last, even though it has taken sixteen years, I've got it.

How can people afford to eat, let alone eat out, in New York? It's always puzzled me. And now I know.

I've been content to "order in", cook the occasional meal, and to dine with a friend at a restaurant. But it hasn't been cheap. And yet every day, coming home from work, I pass hundreds of people eating out in restaurants - restaurants that line the streets of Manhattan - so much so that I'm reminded of Kuta Beach in Bali. Where all the world's a restaurant, and all the men and women merely diners.

And then last night, the penny dropped.

I was having dinner with a friend at the retail-up-market restaurant - David Burke's @Bloomingdales. Yes, they've even put the "@" sign on their brand-name in their menu. So 21st century. Well, maybe ....

For some years I have observed that it is apparently socially correct in New York to ask for a "doggie bag" to take home what you cannot, or choose not, to eat. In light of this, I was rather taken by the episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", where Larry David is incensed when a waiter insists that the contents of David's "doggie bag" not be given to a dog. Surely, it's implied, a doggie bag from a Michelin-rated restaurant is merely a euphemism, and not to be taken literally.

Yes "doggie bag" means "people-who-want-to-eat-it-the-next-day-bag". At least here in New York. Elsewhere the practice is frowned upon. Indeed, in Australia, if not illegal, it is at least discouraged. There's no "use by" date on doggie bags. Perhaps the restaurant could be sued, should the eater of a doggie bag fall ill, five days after devouring last week's left-overs.

But in Manhattan, who cares about law suits. They're a dime dozen, and so restaurants are only too happy to supply "doggie bags" to diners who are in a hurry and who wish to vacate chairs that can be used for other hungry New Yorkers. After all, it means that the diner will leave without actually eating the stuff. Same price, same profit margin. Less the overhead of flatware and chair "real estate". Let them eat from doggie bags; let them eat at home!

From The Box - David Burke@Bloomingdales

David Burke's has a "Prix Fixe" menu. Good value. Especially if you only want a main course in situ.

Here's the thing - you order the appetizer, the main course, and desert. But you only eat the main course. The rest doesn't even have to make it to the table. "We'll have it at home; please put it in a doggie bag," we ask. And the waiter obliges.

And so a $25 "Prix Fixe" meal serves to feed one for three nights.

It's taken me sixteen years and I've only just begun to understand why so many of my of my fellow New Yorkers can be seen leaving restaurants carrying plastic bags. I HAD thought they were for their dogs ... to clean up after their pets had emptied their bowels. I now know they are containers for their human meals. Forget the dogs! Doggie bags are for human beings!

I'm starting to think that this practice must be based on the premise that we are all equal under the law in America.

Doggies are people too.

The Baby Boomers' Dream

2011-03-06T20:41:00.019-05:00

The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy. - Oscar Wilde

I was dreaming of the past
And my heart was beating fast
I began to lose control - from John Lennon, "Jealous Guy"

When was typing in the title of this post, I hesitated - on where to put the apostrophe. Was I about to write about MY dream - the "Baby Boomer's Dream", or of our collective "Baby Boomer's Dream"? I decided on the latter.

Lately I've been fixated on something that's been increasingly commented on explored and dissected in the American press. It has taken many forms but is best summed up with the rhetorical question, "What has happened to the 'American Dream'?"

Now I really can't remember, but I suspect there's an Australian equivalent of the "American Dream", and that it means more or less the same thing. The idea that for all citizens of America (or Australia), it is possible to own a house, have steady job that pays enough to raise a family of 1.2 kids, and to retire gracefully.

The reason the question is being asked, in America at least, is that along with the recession-depression, have come foreclosures, lay-offs and a reduction in publicly-funded vital services such as education and commuter transport. But was it ever just "a dream" or was it what could be reasonably expected in reality. My guess is that for the bulk of Americans it has always been a dream, and that the reason that journos are decrying the "loss" of the dream, is that the gap between the dreamers and the dreamed is becoming larger, and that they, themselves, are becoming dreamless. And in any case, a dream is just that; a dream.

Me, in Iran, 35PF (Pre FaceBook)

But I'm not so interested in the American or the Australian "dream". I AM interested in the baby-boomers' dream. And more so lately as I find more and more of my old peripheral friends popping up on FaceBook. The "lefties" of Sydney and Melbourne. Still going strong. Posting YouTube videos of Jethro Tull and Sonny and Cher songs of the 1970s.

Enabled by Mark Zuckerberg, we are all there, on FaceBook, 'liking' each others' music clips that are all pre-circa-1972. The "summer of love" may be almost 50 years away but we are still around.

We have survived. I'm always amazed when I check an old friend's FaceBook friends. There's invariably someone I knew a hundred years ago. I click the "ask xxx to be your friend" link and to my amazement they always accept my cyber offer. Do they remember me, or do they just look at my profile pic and gauge my age, and being people who were brought up in the fifties and sixties to be polite, accept?

Dylan, aka Robert Allen Zimmerman, has been taken over in interest and in "followers" by Mark Zuckerberg. Ever adaptable, we boomers have overcome! No longer rebels or dreamers, today's young have chosen to conduct their personal and political life in cyberspace. And we have joined them.

I remember marching down St Kilda Road in Melbourne in 1969, protesting against the war in Vietnam. We actually had to leave our houses to do this. Now people can Tweet and FaceBook from the comfort of their own bedrooms.

And I have to hand it to my fellow baby-boomers, we have taken to the new media, and have signed up with Twitter and Facebook in droves.

The American and Australian dreams are still - dreams. The Vietnam war has been replaced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Public health, public schools and public transport are still being pummeled into non-existance by conservative governments.

Like Cool Hand Luke, we shall not be moved.

We shall overcome.

But will we?

Where Did All The Compassion Go?

2011-03-01T22:37:00.024-05:00

Happy happy! - New York Bus People

I am immersed my usual reading daze, sitting on the bus. On my way home from work. Suddenly my concentration is interrupted. Someone has taken a seat one seat away from me, and clunked his backpack on the vacant seat between us. His backpack hits me, but slightly. Enough to wake me from my reading state and I look up.

There's something about the Q32 bus on the west-bound run; the run that transports people from Queens to Manhattan. It is always, well late afternoon at least, partly populated by some very strange people. I've never discovered why, and in the normal course of events it doesn't worry me. But this time it was disconcerting.

I'd seen the man before. He's got some medical condition that causes him to involuntary twitch and move his limbs any which way - inappropriately and uncontrollably. Today he's wearing a threadbare coarse woolen gray coat, and except for the gym shoes, he looks like a character from a Dicken's novel. No teeth. Badly shaven. Tortured. A wild look in his eyes. He has a walking stick. He's about 45. He's one seat away from me and muttering disturbing things like, "God help me I wish I was dead."

Bus Stop

I look around. The bus is three quarters full. Young women are chatting hands-free on cell phones, office workers are gossiping. A business man is reading "New York" magazine. The headline on the cover page is "Are You A Sociopath?". Perhaps I should treat the poor soul a seat away as 'normal'. Maybe that's the politically correct thing to do. His backpack is pressing into my midriff, but I persevere in reading my novel, acting as though all is normal. I have decided not to move to another seat. Why draw more attention to the poor fellow.

Yes, I've seen the man before, so I know the stop where he normally gets off. We are approaching it. I stop reading and look at him. He's trying to concentrate and to gather enough control to stand, to get off when the bus stops. The twitching overwhelms him and he collapses back in his seat muttering, "Please help me!" I pretend to read. The office workers haven't noticed a thing. The cell phone people text and talk.

It's the next stop. Clenching his gums the man manages to stand, and lurching uncontrollably, leaves the bus. It continues on.

New York Women on Bus

At Madison I change buses to go north. There's a line of people, waiting to go north on the M3 bus. I join the line. A few feet to my left is a blind man with a cane. He keeps yelling, "There is no one here; how will I know when the M4 comes?" No one answers. He yells louder. "There is no one here; how will I know when the M4 comes?" The M3 arrives and I'm about four people down-line waiting to get on. No one is answering the blind man, and he's getting louder and more agitated. Eventually I speak up. "We are getting on the M3," I explain. "There is no M4 yet, but one will come and someone will be here to tell you. Right now everyone here is getting on the M3 bus."

But instead of calming him, this just agitates him further. "There is no one here! How will I know when the M4 comes?" he wails.

Dakota Fence Gargoyles

I'm still the only sighted person, the only person answering him. But I'm hassled. "I'm sorry," I reply, "but there are no M4 people here right now; I just cannot manufacture humans for you!" I get on the M3 bus.

"My god," I think to myself. "I'm home. I am a New Yorker again. Compassion has flown out the bus window."

My next bus is a "crosstown". I get on and ask the driver a question, but he just snarls at me and at 72nd and Central Park West I get off. I walk north past the Dakota. It's dusk and for the first time, even though I've walked past it - the building that John and Yoko lived in - many times before, on the very sidewalk where Lennon was fatally shot, I notice for the first time, the gargoyles on its black wrought iron fence. They look evil. Threatening. I hurry on. Too creepy!

And then I arrive. At my therapist's.

Yikes! I am back. In New York.

A Touch of Blue

2011-02-27T22:06:00.002-05:00

What was it like when the world was in black and white? My daughter at age 6, 100 years ago, when seeing a 1950's movie on television.

86th Street Sunday 27 February 2011

Today, Sunday, no snow and blue skies. I ventured out. Manhattan at its best. No snow, no heat. People were out in force and I decided to take some photos. Street scenes. I was out to see the Coen Brothers latest film, "True Grit". I wonder why they don't make a movie set in Manhattan. Or have they?

Will they ever do a Woody Allen type film, with a background of jazz music, or are they just a little bit too much into violence and the America of the primitive backwaters? Whatever, they are brilliant.

Waiting outside the movie theater for my friend, I decided to take some photos of New Yorkers. Random photos. It wasn't till I got home and transferred the photos to my computer that I noticed their lack of color. Apart from the blue jeans and blue skies, everything was black and white.

The morning after - man with eye shades, 2nd Avenue

And it wasn't just today. Yesterday when I ventured out from my normal Saturday of sloth and watching pathetic stuff on TV, I passed this man.

The same black and white with blue jeans. At first I thought he was our neighborhood homeless man, who has been here since we moved here in 2003. But on looking at the photo I notice his recently laundered jeans and his well-heeled shoes. I begin to expect he is one of the Tea Party's "middle class". What has happened to the bourgeoisie? If Karl Marx came back today, would the like of this man be his revolutionary? ASIF!

Melbourne, January 2011

Perhaps I've been too random in my photos. I decide to look back at my photos of last month. Of Melbourne, Australia. Of course I'm being selective.

But who says I have to be objective.

In my mind's eye from here in New York, Australia is a land of sun, of fun, of relaxation and to top it all off, of a decent health care system.

A dream, which however unrealistic, is mine to keep.

The Drinking Consultants

2011-02-24T18:49:00.004-05:00

The Republican McCain-Palin campaign later applied "Joe the Plumber" as a metaphor for middle-class Americans. - Wikipedia

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

King and Godfrey's, Lygon Street

Sitting in the Q32 bus on my way home from work. I was absorbed in reading Great House on my Kindle. February, New York. Dusk. I glanced up and stared out the window in front of me.

The sunset was a vivid pink behind a postcard silhouette of the Manhattan skyline. It reminded me of those ghastly "paintings" on velvet that bogan families put on their walls in Australia last century. Those "paintings" of horse heads and pretend Polynesian girls ...

I thought of taking a photo, but would the camera catch the outrageousness of the garish scene? And in any case I was too late. The sunset disappeared as the bus descended from the Queensboro Bridge into the depths of Manhattan.

So soon the Australian-ness of my vibe had gone, and though only five weeks had passed since my trip to OZ, my Australian life was once again, history.

Was I really there just last month? What had I left? A land where "drink consultant" is a profession. Where the Sex Party is a political organization. Where people while away their days socializing. Well that's the impression. And even if it isn't quite true, I like to pretend that it is.

As I walk the streets of Melbourne on my all too infrequent trips back home I'm reminded of Joni Mitchell's "Carey". "And we'll laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down."

My friends enlighten me. It isn't all play and no work and in any case, maybe these people you see in outdoor cafés are out-of-towners, tourists. The real Melbourne people are working in offices, earning a quid because everything is so expensive. Right!

Near the Alfred Hospital - Visiting Hours Over - Australians at Play

Late January, 2011. The tellie is full of commentary and scenes of the Queensland floods which were in full force. Television in Australia is becoming like CNN in America. The same scenes, the same interviews played over and over again. The Aussie journo's knack of sniffing out the village idiot in every town, means we have to put up with scenes of little Aussie battlers sitting outside their flooded homes drinking beer. Of hoons on surfboards in rivers that have burst their banks. "Dreadful" say my friends. "What will the rest of the world think of us!"

Corner of Elgin and Lygon, Melbourne

Our Prime Minister Julia Gillard keeps embarrassing everyone by appearing on television in the midst of the flood and its victims, smiling plastically at the camera. I ask my brother, "Is she putting on that accent, trying to sound working class?" "No," he informs me, "She thinks she's talking posh."

I'm reminded of this when back in New York, a colleague tells me that he saw Julia Gillard on television the previous evening. I try to change the subject, as if by hearing about her in a distant land I'm somehow tainted. But he persists. "Is she low class?" he asks. "Probably," I mutter. "She doesn't sound like you," he's saying as I move away.

Universita Restaurant, Lygon Street Carlton

Yep I'm back. Back in America where there IS no "working class". For my Australian readers - when Obama et al talk of the "middle class" they mean working class and middle class. People who work. The people with blue collar jobs are "low class". Republican states are "red" states. Democrat states are "blue". They've got it backwards. The conservatives aren't "liberals". "Liberal" doesn't apply to economic policy but to social reform and being left wing. Barack is the President's first name and not something you do for your favorite footy team.

The other side of the world seems like the other side of the world. But there is one small mercy.

I don't have to listen to Julia Gillard.

The Half-Unpacked Case

2011-02-12T18:08:00.015-05:00

A large part of travelling consists purely in waiting, with all the attendant ennui and depression. - Damon Galgut, "In a Strange Room"

The first thing that I do when returning from a significant trip away, is to try to keep the feeling. The feeling of being there; "there" being the place I have just returned from.

Even on day-one, I am conscious of the feeling, the touch of the place that will continue to fade into a personal and muted history. I always try, although I know it is in vain, to "keep the feeling", to hold it in my mind, to capture the essence of the experience that grows further away ever minute.

I even have tactics, mechanisms to keep my memories alive. I try to keep, for as long as possible, all physical evidence that I have been away.

First there's the luggage. I used to unpack as soon as I got in the door. But now I do so on an as-needed basis. It is now three weeks since I returned from Melbourne. What's in the case? I take a look. A summer dress I bought at David Jones. It'll need to be dry-cleaned and it is winter here in New York; it can stay there a while longer. A power adapter for my Australian mobile phone. No point in removing it. Summer sandals. An umbrella - Melbourne weather! Summer tops. I close the lid. It is getting painful.

Another tactic is not to pick up my paper mail. To do so is a sign of settling back into the routine of being HERE, not THERE. After a week my ingrained conscientiousness gets to me and I collect it from the box downstairs, sort out the junk, pay bills. The mundane-ness of being back. It's too much. I decide to collect it weekly now instead of daily as I have always done before - perhaps my Melbourne-feeling will stay a little longer.

I keep using my manual toothbrush that I took to OZ. My electric one stays on its base in the bathroom - all dried-up. Good!

I remember I'm meant to call my dentist and make a string of appointments that were interrupted when I left. That can wait.

But I know that soon I'll empty the case, start collecting the paper mail daily. I'll even make dental appointments.

For today I had my nails done at my local nail salon. A routine New York event. Back! The nail polish I'd worn to Australia was growing out anyway. It's gone now, replaced with blue.

I chose the color well.

Falling Out Of Love - With New York

2011-02-07T20:55:00.011-05:00

"My one regret in life is that I am not someone else." - Woody Allen

Inside a Melbourne Tram

He said it as one sentence - "How-ya-goin-mate-I-nearly-sconned-you". Sconned - OZ for knocking a persons head off. As in "I was recently sconned in the head with a beer bottle."

He was the Melbourne 200-City-Bulleen bus driver and he had just been forced to brake for a man in double dreadlocks who had walked in front of the bus to get to its door. Unfazed and unsconned, Dreadlocks swiped his ticket and sat down in front of me.

I'd realized the bus driver was a wise guy, when I'd gotten onto the bus and asked whether it went down Johnston Street, which was not far away. "Yes next turn I make is into Elgin Street," he had replied. Adding, "Elgin Street turns into Johnston. Then I turn onto Studley Park Road and go left at Princess, right into Willsmere, left into Kirkby Street. Then I get to Bulleen road and make a right at Thompson's Road, another right at Manningham and then it's right at Williams Road and then I get off and go to the pub for a beer".

I thanked him and smiled. But it was his comment to the nearly-sconned man that got to me. And I think, that's what did it. That's what triggered the memories and the longing.

The laconic irreverence of the stereotypical Australian. Had I heard the same sentence spoken by an actor in an Australian film, or in an ad for Fosters I would have found it over the top; at worse embarrassing, at best ridiculous. But coming from the horse's mouth as it were, it was reassuring. The best and worst of Australia was apparently alive and well.

Australians at Play - Belgium Beer Garden, Melbourne

I few days later I spent several enjoyable hours with my nephew and friend in a beer garden in South Yarra. Around us were hundreds of other people, singles, couples, families ... enjoying a sunny Melbourne day ... doing nothing in particular.

The image of Australians sitting in sidewalk cafés - unhurried, cell phones hidden from view, conversing sans-FaceBook - is engraved in my mind. My vision - although I know it is not representative - of "life back home. Nevertheless it is stamped there. I tend to be like that - easily conditioned, impressionable.

A hundred years ago I was crossing the land border from Pakistan to India. I was leaving a country where I'd had to cover most of my body and a fair bit of my head whenever I ventured out. After looking through my passport the Pakistani border guy motioned me to move on. "Where to?" I asked. "To hell," he replied, pointing to India. I walked on.

My first vision of India then was of a bunch of brightly-colored-sari clad Indian woman sitting on a cart being driven by oxen. I remember distinctly. Their saris were yellow, blue and red, bordered with gold patterns. Their faces were uncovered. They were talking and laughing. I was in India! I was not in hell! Darkness turned to light.

Australian for Politics

Ever since then, when I think about India, I remember those women and the feeling of joy that they evoked. Yes I know there is sadness, poverty and corruption there, but there's also joy. And representative or not, that is the image my brain conjures up, that is my India.

In much the same way, Australia evokes images of warm days relaxing in beer gardens or dining el fresco, of bus drivers unafraid of saying what they think, of lazy hazy days.

Representative or not it doesn't matter. The images are planted firmly in my brain - a yardstick by which other societies will be unjustly no doubt, judged.

New York - you are pretty good - but you are not, my Australia.

Yesterday's Laundry

2011-01-01T18:20:00.014-05:00

What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? - Woody Allen

Central Park West, Last Days of 2010

2011. Who would have thought it. Yet here we all are. And what's more, I am now a member of a generation that is, as some patronizingly put it, "entering into a new window on life, the Third Age".

"You know how there's all sorts of groups," my brother told me a few weeks ago. "Like Asian, Jewish, boys, girls, black, white and so on. Well I always thought you couldn't cross from one to another; you had your "'group'. And I saw 'old people' as one such a group. A group I'd never belong to. And now I'm one of them!"

I feel the same way. Sometimes I try to see the positives of getting older. We are supposed to become wiser, more mature, tolerant and kind. Pop psychologists would have us self actualized, knowing and accepting who we are, understanding ourselves ...

Well Mr Maslow et al, you obviously don't live in New York. It is pretty pretty hard to know oneself in THIS apple.

Dry Cleaner's Laundry Bag

Take the other day for example, when I dropped by the local dry-cleaners to see why my laundry had not been delivered. Our dry-cleaning is dropped off at the building's lobby in a dry-cleaner-supplied yellow bag. It's then picked up that evening and returned by the dry-cleaner to the lobby once it's ready. Mine hadn't come back, so around day 3 I walked to the dry-cleaners and asked about it.

"Name?" he asked and I gave it. "Very sorry, is no such name," he said. "But I am telling you my name and you have been taking my stuff and charging my credit card for years," I complained. On and on it went. Until I remembered he'd misspelled my name on the tag, and so he'd probably done the same thing when he'd entered it into his computer.

Without my laundry bag I could not recall HOW he'd spelled my name. I tried all sorts of variations while he looked at me pityingly. "You do not know your name," he was saying.

Eventually I got it right. K-A-T-H-E-L-E-E-N. So that's who I was Ms Katheleen. I'd thought I was Kathleen Juliff. Silly me!

It wasn't as if it was the first time I'd had an identity problem. A few months ago I went to a new pharmacy. Before I could get my prescription filled I had to give the pharmacist identifying information, including my date of birth.

When I returned to pick up the prescription, I was asked for my date of birth. I mumbled it back but he couldn't hear. I was forced to shriek it out for the whole pharmacy to hear. "Oh well, who cares," I was thinking, only to hear that I had it wrong. "Sorry," said Mr. Pharmacist, "you got it wrong. It is 1/1/1980." "Clearly it is not," I insisted. "That's what the computer tells me," he answered with an air of triumph. "I suggested he'd mistyped it in, in the first place. But he was not to be convinced. See, I don't even know when I was born, let alone my name.

Several years ago I opened a new account at Chase Bank. The bank manager transcribed my credentials from the form I'd filled in, to the computer. The branch in question happens to be in the same building - same street number and street - as our apartment.

Doorman shoveling snow, December 2010

A week later I received a letter from the bank saying the account was declined as the address was the address of a milliners, and was not an apartment block. A milliner!!!! Obviously they had a very old street directory I hissed. And anyway the branch was at the same address and didn't sell hats.

I showed the letter to the bank manager but he just shrugged. Obviously I didn't know where I lived.

Eventually the bank conceded that my address was my address, but explained that the account was still declined because my Social Security number was incorrect. I took the elevator upstairs and found my blue Social Security Card. The original. I showed it to the manager who checked again. "Incorrect, you'll have to contact Social Security!" was all I could get from him. "The computer has a completely different number in it." I wasn't me after all.

In the end it was sorted out. I was allowed to give the bank my money.

What's WITH these people. What's with ME?

Who am I?

I am Kathleenwng and I approve this message.

On the other side of the aisle

2010-12-18T15:06:00.026-05:00

Can someone else take over from me on front of store? I've had enough! FOREVER! - Manager of the local supermarket after arguing with a customer about a can of Pepsi for 40 minutes

A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied, and I think that's what we have here. - Larry David

Holiday Shopping, Keyfood, Manhattan

I was approaching the fast lane at the local supermarket's checkout. The manager was there arguing with two customers who stood there zombie-like. One of them was repeating over and over, "Where's my free soda?"

The manager saw me approaching and called out. "Take the next line, Miss. I'm going to be two hours here."

I did. And he was. Well, I think he was, because I hung around fascinated and he was still dealing with the two women when I decided to leave.

Saturday afternoon entertainment. New York style.

It all happened after having had all her items processed through the checkout, one of the women wanted a free can of Pepsi. There'd been a buy-a-can-get-one-free special on cans of Coke. She'd bought only Pepsi. It had apparently been explained to her several times that she needed to buy Coke to get a free can of Coke, but she wasn't having any of it, so the manager had been called over to explain.

Sad Christmas Decoration Second Avenue, New York

I stood there transfixed as the manager did his best to explain what "get one free" meant and that Pepsi and Coke were two different brands. He had to repeat every sentence several times. The woman looked at him with dead eyes. Eventually he reversed the Pepsi charge and took the can from her basket. Here you are, he explained. Here's your money back. Now if you want to get a free can of Coke you need to buy a can of Coke. "Can I buy two?" she asked. "Buy as many as you want," he said.

She went off and came back with two cans of Coke. He told her he'd only charge for one, as the other was free. But she wasn't satisfied. She claimed she was entitled to two cans, one of Pepsi and one of Coke and where were they?

All this time the checkout girl was leaning languidly against the counter, focussed on something in a different land, visions of sugar-plums perhaps, or of bowls of noodles at a restaurant at a South East Asian beach. "Nobody cares," the woman behind me was muttering. Homeless people with big bags of cans were shuffling around waiting for the cash for cans-recycler machine near the doorway. Several newly-arrived Nubian-looking men were talking in French, waiting for 'delivery orders', oblivious to the fracas. "I want a can of Coke and a can of Pepsi," the complaining-woman was repeating for the hundredth time to the manager.

Eventually he left, waving his arms in the air and calling for someone to take over from him. Enough was enough.

By now I had finished with my purchases but lingered, wondering how the next person would handle it all. But no sooner than I'd swiped my card, than the manager was back. A glutton for punishment. Though I understood his position. He was determined to have her understand.

I stood around for a while. The woman had become even more confused. She appeared to have forgotten about her refund and was wanting even more Pepsis. She wanted free ones for the free ones she hadn't received from the purchase of the Pepsi that had been refunded. It was going to go on forever.

I couldn't stand it.

I think I'll mosey along to Fifth Avenue and stand amongst the tourists.

New Yorkers are getting me down.

P.S. My best ten books of 2010 are HERE.