Why do I like reading a blog more than writing one?

With the best of intentions I find that I just put writing off one more night

so I can read more...



I read a few blogs daily,

I read several more every few days

and some weekly.



But perhaps it's more that I read The Times and The Post daily,

3 magazines a week,

2 books a week,

The Age, The ABC News and the Sunny Daily online

as well as reviews, commentaries, and sundry articles.



Time to write?



I am going to streamline the reading, a bit less each day

and a bit more communication. I have hardly emailed or contacted

anyone in the last few months.



So, 4 days before a trip home to Oz. The daffodils are out in the planter boxes

in Manhattan,

the magnolia's are ready to bust into bloom

and it rains a lot.



If Kansas wins the college basketball comp tonight I win the 'footy tips'.

Ha, great to be reminded that life is a lot about luck!

Spring frolics

They had a pillow fight in Union Square this afternoon. An internet organised free event for all and sundry. Feathers were blowing down Broadway and there were smiles on the faces of the spectators as well as the participants. Even those who had no idea what was happening or why, paused and smiled at the whacking.

Spring is not here yet, but the bulbs are pushing leaves above the ground even though it was 4C. Lindsay and I did our favorite walk across the Brooklyn bridge with Arron Wood who is visiting, and jostled with the Chinatown crowds afterwards. The brisk, cool air did not stop families from picnicking in Columbus square.

It was a joy to be outdoors.

'Wotz in a name?' she sez

Thank goodness for a man called Kevin. If you can get elected to PM with a name like that in Australia then there is hope for someone called Barack in the US. In the land of immigrants Obama's name has been something of an albatross. I hope familiarity will breed content. It seems to have worked for Kev.

Now what do we do about Hillary?

Free the turkey!

Who needs turkey?
The Thanksgiving stuffing is more than bread and herbs. It can have apple, cranberries, nuts, meat, spices, and be made in a thousand ways. It's great with gravy, a heap of cranberry sauce, and vegies. Let the turkey live...

Living like a local?

Have I assimilated?

• I chew gum
• I listen to my iPod on the subway
• I dash out to shop at the supermarket when changing trains
• I give money to musically talented buskers
• I eat breakfast in a bodega
• I can say,'two eggs easy over, side of bacon, rye toast no butter, hold the home fries' really quickly
• I wish I had gumboots for rainy days
• I own more umbrellas than handbags
• I save pennies in a jar
• I buy Shea butter from the Africans on the street
• I drink strong, freshly ground coffee in the mornings when it's still dark
• I sleep less

It's a bit scary cos I could go on and on with a list like this. What would stop me would be the fact that so much of what I now do is so instinstive that I don't realise it's a habit of only a few years. How interesting it is to me to think about how culturally located so much of what I do is. And to think I thought I had an independent mind!

October in Vermont

Ever had one of those, 'One day I'd like to do that", thoughts?



Something along that line for me, was to one day take a trip to Vermont in 'peak season', as they say in New England. Well I did it and now have had time to wonder why I'd always wanted to do it. I understand more easily why I wanted to see things like the Grand Canyon or Uluru. There's a size and scale aspect as well as a uniqueness about them that can only be experienced on site.



Autumn scenes seem to me to be different. I saw some great fall color in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Canada in 91. Have done so more recently, so why New England? Was it different?



Vermont did have a lot of hills. They do have a different mix of trees to other parts of this country. We stayed in a comfortable house in the Green Mountains near the Mad River Glen Ski Area. The Mad River itself looked calm. I think it was when I took a walk back down the mountain one evening that I realised how appealing the area was. It was completely quiet except for the sound of leaves drifting from branches and resting on the road and ground around me. There were lots of falling leaves. The sound was like wind blowing, yet I felt no air move. There was a sort of disconnect between what I heard and felt. Yet what I saw was a riot of color. Lots of orange and red and yellow swathes of light as the afternoon sun reflected through the trees and on the falling leaves. I thought of the death of each single leaf and the brightness of its fall. I thought of Les Murray's poem about the sounds of an axefall in the Australian bush. What is it to be a witness? Can I re-present this experience in my mind later any better than a calendar shot? Can any experience truly be shared? And what is it now but a memory, something faded and diminished because my senses cannot recall it in total. What do I feel when I look at a photo? Something of the cool air on my skin and the vivid color before my eyes.



And now, much later, what to make of a place that was nature in flux. Does it differ in memory in any way from say my vision of the side of a mountain in the Grampians after the bushfires when the first flush of green burst from the black trunks of gums?



What it leaves me with, is an urge to just get out there. To be in nature. It is always different, always a new light/hue/sound/feel. And the best part is how inconsequential I feel amongst it all. We may be destroying a lot of it, but whenever I venture into a totally natural landscape I feel witness to something larger than myself. Perhaps it's enough to be thinking of my place in the scheme of things.

Films that resonate

Two films that have stuck with me for some days have almost nothing in common.
No Country For Old Men had images that stuck fast, something that I have experienced with previous Coen brothers films. I think taking my kids to see Barton Fink in 1991 may have been a mistake, but I like to imagine that they would be able to recall images from that unique film. Because I love the McCarthy book that this current film is based on, so watching it was a double pleasure. And such a literal screenplay! For an Aussie there was a lot that was familiar in the sparse Western landscapes and the evident battles to scratch a living from a dry, harsh landscape.

But what stuck? Javier Bardem is a chilling villain. An 'Other' that looks, sounds and moves like an alien. An outsider who blasts the fabric of society to shreds. It's hard to watch, harder not to watch. And then there's the humor. The drama/humor mix is classic Coen and took me on a road trip I won't easily forget. 5 stars Margaret!

By contrast, Southland Tales makes Donnie Darko look like Mary Poppins. The director has gone psycho with an apocalyptic story that is ambitiously pretentious, eccentric, wild, colorful and amazingly graphic. It doesn't really work but then again I'm not sure it should. After all, The Rock stars as a man who goes out to Kansas somewhere and travels through a rift in the time-space continuum. And comes back. And has no memory. And we see him hitch up with Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star. Now that's worth seeing the film for alone. There are amazingly fantastic bits, religious cant, the war on terror, big brother real and imagined and more pop cultural and media references than I could ever comprehend.
I wouldn't recommend this film to people unless they thought Leaving Las Vegas was hilarious, and believe that life really is a farce.