New Favourite Blog!

Here at BmL, we're having a party! Inviting all our friend!
(We've only one, but she's a larf, she lets us all attend).

Namely, our new favourite blog: Strange Maps. Check out this marvellous specimen of Salazarist craziness, for starters.

And while you're at it, ooh, its the E-cyclopedia of Portuguese Expansion.

(Don't wait up honey, I may be some time.)

Head waggling at Reis Magos

Its been too long between forts, O meu Capitão! Hove the lateen sail and noon-point the sextant for the latitude of Reis Magos. First built in the late 1500s, this fort swathed in wild forest overlooks the Mandovi river and the lovely town of Panjim, former capital of the (rather ostentatiously named, given its size) Portuguese Estado da India - now capital of Goa state, India.

Reis Magos (the 'Three Wise Men' in Portuguese) is a small village across the river, consisting of a Church, a small village, and this very old fort which once guarded entry to the capital.

The main thing I recall about it - aside from the pearler of a view - was my arrival inside the walls, after climbing the steep, crumbling stairs. Two local guys were sunning themselves, half asleep, and we all surprised each other at awkwardly close proximity. The thought pattern at that instant was probably much like this:

Me: Shit - two men, isolated spot. Are we friendly?
Them: Shit - look at the size of that Gora. Is he friendly?

It was then that I recalled a favourite passage of Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram, which I was then reading. In it he explains that the classic Indian side to side 'head-waggle' (for want of a better term) is in fact a gesture of general affability and friendliness. So I tried it on. And blimey, it worked! They both relaxed visibly, and one said "hello - you seem nice!".

Aide from the cross-cultural gesture awareness breakthroughs, it was a great fort too! Some classic cornice sentry boxes, as you'll see. If you're ever in the area, I'd recommend the semi-hidden Reis Magos over the larger and better known Fort Aguada nearby.

'I gits a stretch fer stoushing Johns' - The Sentimental Bloke (1919)

I've just seen the DVD reprint (with soundtrack by Jen Anderson) of Raymond Longford's classic silent film The Sentimental Bloke. Normally bored and already squirming in my chair by the very idea of silent film, I was quite taken with it - it really is an engaging movie, capturing the wonderful vernacular of C.J. Dennis' verse novel.

C.J. himself (who had only published it 4 years earlier) appears at the start of the film. The main female lead (Lottie Lyell) was the de facto partner (and reputed co-director) of the credited director Raymond Longford, who you can see interviewed shortly before his death in 1959 on the extras. When a print of the film was rediscovered in the 1950s and re-released, he was found - then in his 80s - working as nightwatchman on the docks.

There's some great footage of Manly and Wolloomoolloo after the war, including a genuine digger in the background on the ferry as Bill and Doreen go on their first date. I really enjoyed it, and partly, if you'll allow the digression, because I once recorded an album at Jen Anderson's studio back in my musician days. A friend and I - both in other bands at the time - recorded a lowly independent CD there as a two-piece with some spare songs our respective outfits weren't using. He suggested Jen Anderson's studio - then in Northcote - where his band had recorded before. We both lived in Brisbane then, and it was a great week down here recording and louching around with muso friends and acquaintances.

Ten years later and I live a few streets away - though Jen herself has moved elsewhere in Melbourne. Suffice to say, she really was a great producer and sound technician - and I am truly blessed - as a part-timer then, and no longer in the game - to have Jen Anderson's violin solos on a song or two of my own. It really lifted the whole thing to another plane - and made it sound like I knew what I was doing. Which, by and large, I didn't.

Coming from Brisbane, I didn't realise then how BIG her band Weddings, Parties, Anything were in Melbourne. We went to a party and met them all - they were really great people. Top memories - thanks Jen! Whatever you're up to now. Anyway, the point is: I think the sound track is beautiful, and works seamlessly.

Oh yeah - and the title of my post. Watching Underbelly this last year, I got to wondering where this "Jacks" slang for coppers had come from, as I 'd never heard it. And lo! They appear as the "Johns" in C.J. Dennis. Mystery solved?

The Origin of Tuesday

Miss LE (etymological warrior, of but 5 summers): Daddy, what does Friday mean?
LE: Its named after a God from the olden days, sweetheart. Freya's day, a Norse Goddess.
Miss LE: What's Norse?
LE: Norse means from Norway.
Miss LE: What about Wednesday?
LE: That's Woden's day. Another Norse God. All the days are named liked that, or after the sun or moon. I don't know what Tuesday is named after though.

[pause]

Miss LE: ...it sounds like Cheese.
LE: Ok
Miss LE: Yeah, there was a Cheese man in the olden days, daddy.
LE: [LOL outbreak]
Miss LE: And he was a God. The Morse God of Cheese. OK?
LE: [pulling car over to recover] OK sweetheart.
Miss LE: .....Why are we stopping?

Best Screen Devil Ever?

Bedazzled: Drimble Wedge & The Vegetations (1967).

The House of Cassel

As I may have mentioned at other times, I love it when freaky Kismet-style shit comes across my desk, here at Keating Towers.

For some time Ive been a great fan of Jean-Pierre Cassel (above) - the roguish, charming French lead in such greats as Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), and Claude Chabrol's truly ace Hitchcockian classic La Rupture (1970). (Incidentally, both films also star my only genuine silver screen crush, the haute and magnificent Stéphane Audran). Cassel also played the classic dastardly Frenchman role as Pierre Dubois in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965).

Alors, well then... meet his son: none other than Vincent "La Haine" Cassel. Who knew? And there he is, playing the same sort of roles. Quality French gear like La Haine, and devilish Frenchmen in more schlocky Anglo-productions like Ocean's Twelve.

I love it when things make sense!

*rocks back and forth imperceptibly*

Global Graffiti #1

Go to Spain/Abortion: Lisbon, 2007



'Rua Salazar' street sign, several regimes old, with local commentary - Liquica, Timor-Leste, 2009











No Nukes, Isle des Pins, New Caledonia, 2004.

www.350.org

Well, this is more like it! In line with recent rants here at BmL, this looks like a good forum for direct global citizen action on climate change.

You can register new actions online. There even a map showing all the actions taking place around the world. A lot of big names are on board, include Monbiot and David Suzuki. Bill McKibben is currently on a speaking tour in Oz.

I must say, I don't see any power station blockades there (yet!!). But like I say, if Copenhagen can't get us to a scientific minimum - that's what's gotta be next! In any case, the 350 idea is good, and the program of mobilising citizens rather than states is exactly what's needed, IMHO.

Don’t leave it up to pollies and scientists!! Or nothing will happen!

On state failure and responsible global citizenship (or, not another climate manifesto!)

As I was arguing (slash ranting!) recently over at Larvatus Prodeo, if our governments at Copenhagen fail to at least meet the scientific minima for a fighting chance of our grandchildren having normal lives - then we as global citizens ought to declare 'state failure' on the issue.

Namely:

1. That we declare we are ruled by failed states that no longer protect human life (let alone liberty and happiness) and that,

2. As our ‘representatives’ in fact appear to represent the passing, epheremal and irresponsible interest of damaging industrial elites, rather than their consitutencies, that we, as responsible global citizens, will take collective action to,

3. Obstruct key exemplars of the most polluting industries in each of our countries, in non-violent, globally co-ordinated acts of civil disobedience, such that,

4. Disruption of the most polluting industries becomes a constant inconvenient truth about unsustainable energy practies.

Honestly, I wonder whether our descendants will look at us as young Germans view their previous generations: what did you know, and what did you do then, Grandad? The scientific evidence very strongly suggests they wont have lucky, pleasant lives like ours - thanks to our failures. We’ll be cursed - some as criminals (major polluters, professional apologists like Howard and Bolt) and the rest silently questioned - what did you know, then?

I know we’re all hopelessly inadequate as individuals (well, I certainly know I am) but stuff it. Let’s get up them! Let us question - U.S. style - the fundaments of any alleged ‘right to govern’ while the most basic rights, truths we hold self-evident - are in constant breach.

To the Women of Australia (1915)

James Henry Scott, 19, of Cloncurry, QLD, enlisted in August 1914, in the first few weeks of the war, and was drafted to the 9th Battalion. The 3rd Brigade of the 9th was the covering force for the ANZAC landing on 25 April 1915, and was the first ashore at around 4.30 am.

He did not live to see the sunrise.

When my grandmother died in 2005, I inherited this badge, 'To the Women of Australia'. My grandmother's writing is on the card. James was her uncle.

This badge possibly went first to his sister, my great-grandmother, as their mother is referred to as the 'late' Catherine Scott in military grave records. Or perhaps James' mother died, grief-stricken, between 1915 and the formal headstone finally being laid at Gallipoli. I don't know.

There's a lot of respect, a lot of ceremony, and a lot of remembrance of WW1 these days - but I'm not convinced any of that truly captures what must be been the real legacy in the decades that followed: the grief. This badge - and the 61,720 like it - is a small reminder of the unbearable personal sorrow that must have rent this country, town by town, street by street, room by childhood room.