The Little Things - August

It's been a very quiet month for me, though incredible busy, looking after my sick mother so being absent from my life and home, and the kiddo's exams and 18th, so let's see how we go answering these questions...my Insta, instead of being 3 photos, is barely one!

READ While at the hospital, I read this sign. I feel this is not a well known enough fact, and I feel something needs to be done. That's heading towards 5% of the total population (so I guess close to 10% of the male population). You can find out more here. I will be honest this is something I've never thought about, but thought it really needed to be shared, if those numbers are correct. This is not something that needs to even be an issue for those affected to think about. It's an easy fix.

One of the kids is off to a party that involves dressing up and watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the cinema before kicking on. I LOVED this movie as a teen (and Shock Treatment). I used to go and watch it all the time at that kooky little cinema on George Street - people threw confetti and toast at the right times and yelled things out at other times. I've had this 1979 book since the early 80's and loved it. A friend and I even wrote a parody called Stony Terror. It is apparently the birthday person's favourite film, so I am giving my beloved book to as part of the gift, which was a little hard to tell you the truth but it's just been sitting in a box in the roof for decades....so better it receive some love again. I did have fun flicking through the pages though. As I write this, the news flashed up on my phone that Tim Curry passed away, so that's a little sad. He always seemed so positive after such a terrible last decade with his health. Vale.

WATCHED We saw 2 comedians this month - Bobby Lee and Kitty Flanagan for much needed laughs. It was interesting to see 2 comedians more or less the same age but playing to different audience. Bobby Lee's was predominately 20-30 year olds and Kitty's was middle aged and up. Both funny but it was interesting that Kitty's audience aged with her, and Bobby found new markets. I was at Kitty's first gig at the Harold Park Hotel when they did comedy nights and she was as funny then as she is now. I discovered Bobby Lee when breast feeding one on the babies in the middle of the night on MADTV about 25 years ago, so I was surprised when they did the audience cheer by age and there were hardly anyone in the 50's and 60's. I said to a friend 'he must do a podcast now or something' and they looked at me like I was a nut and said 'Why did you go? How do you even know him if you didn't know that?'

Kitty talked about Pollyanna and I remember this from the Little Golden Book version and the telling in the Childcraft series - I don't remember the Glad Game so much but the excitement of the rainbows on the wall - and I only just now wonder if that's why I get so excited by them?

HEARD At FODI I heard Michael Pembroke speak. He raised the advice that we should get our news from more than one source - Overseas sources, so we hear different points of views on the telling of the story. He pointed out that the West is just 12% of the countries in the world, and the other 88% view the world differently (or we think differently to them). So the spin on the news we get differs. I started doing this about 8 years ago. Having always tried to read local newspapers when I travel, I've found it interesting to see countries and cities from a more local mindset. I get the news from Singapore and Malta, two random and more cheery views on the world. Obviously anything in English would have a Western bent, though it's fascinating to see the different reactions to news. He is very smart, and I will read one of his books as he's quite prolific in non fiction, global politics, war and history. I just wish he'd been able to speak more at the talk, it got rather side tracked which was a little disappointing.

MADE it to the fabulous Lottie before it shut. Will be sad not to eat their fabulous food ever again! Alas only made it to one dance class and one morning walk with my friend due to having to stay up at Mum's to look after here. Hoping this weekend gets both happening. I did catch up on steps by walking to FODI both days, walking to the comedy shows and trying to sneak in extra steps when I could.

WORE myself out driving for hours each day and not sleeping with stress. So I'll share this design from the Enmore Tafe school of Design - on display underneath Central, heading to the Goods line.

MY TOP THREE MOMENTS FROM THE MONTH GONE BY The is good news on the dog front, she is improving on the medicine and we wait to see about the operation. Mum is a little better but not out of the woods just yet. So I guess those are the top moments, but for activities, I had a wonderful time at darts (Flight Club) with friends. It was such a great afternoon and I could have played for much longer. Keen to take the fam there now that everyone is 18! A great time with friends at Sing it! and a last mad dance to ELINA at Lazy Thinking before it closed.

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Share Four Something - August

 Something I loved  It's been a really quite month as my mum was sick so I had to cancel a few things - fortunately, as there were the exams, I hadn't booked as much as normal. So after a rough an lonely few weeks, it was great to get out and sing 90's songs with friends (and dance!) at Sing it!. If you haven't been and you like to sing, definitely get yourself to a show. It's so much fun!     

Also good to get to a couple of comedians - Bobby Lee and Kitty Flanagan. Nothing makes you feel better than laughing AND thinking! Kitty raised an issue that I raised with friends after a talk at FODI on the weekend. I can't stop thinking about it. So more on that to come in a post....

At the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, you could dig through a HEAP of dirt for 5 minutes (timed) looking for art works. I was surprised that it was deeply satisfying and pleasant to feel the dirt under your bare feet (obviously something I don't do enough of) and while it was a test in patience - I said to my friend 'I won't be able to do this for 5 minutes!' I was genuinely surprised when we were called off the heap because our time was up...so it was in fact a very zen exercise.

Something that sustained me I spent the weekend at Festival of Dangerous Ideas and went to about 9 talks over 2 days. There was so much to think about and I learnt a lot, and it was great to discuss it all with friends over a lovely lunch on the last day, and in the breaks between talks if we had them. One of the best ones was Enshittification and you can listen to it here ($17). It's well worth it, in my opinion. There are plenty of other talks from past years on demand here. One thing that came up in the session on Bad Education is that in Australia, education is transactional. It's for a job or for marks - it's not about learning and the love of learning and what feeding interests can do for you (shame on Morrison for what he did to the Humanities). I realised that's what everyone in the FODI audience was doing. We were learning, we were thinking about points of view we may or may not agree with, we were nourishing our souls and exercising our minds and feeling invigorated by learning. I think it's really sad what we are becoming. And you just have to go on Twitter to realise how many people don't understand how elections work (regarding preferences) or how Super is paid. It's extraordinary. So we have lost something in the last 40 years with our decline in education and more importantly, not valuing education, and that's very sad to see. If you have never been to FODI, I suggest you go to at least one talk next year. It's by far my favourite talk festival of the year.

Something I'm carrying forward from this month to the next As I mentioned in this post, my youngest is now 18, so I am finding the balance of parenting an adult, but also dealing with a school kid, who has school obligations. It's a tricky line to tread....you have to find the balance of adult independence but also remind them to study, to get enough sleep, to be doing all the things required for school in the last months...and not damage our relationship in the process by over parenting, but not damage their options by under parenting.... 

Something I'm making space for Grip strengthening and arm weights, plus some neuro-exercises. They're just off the internet so who knows if they do anything, but I'm working on the theory that they don't hurt (if they're the right ones). This is because I read that poor grip strength is linked to cognitive decline. I don't know if it's true (there are a lot of medical articles so I'm guessing it is) and I guess it makes sense that if those neural pathways weaken, those weaker connections show in a physical way, But whether you can correct them in reverse, strengthening the physically to strengthen the mental, who knows? (Sorry to leave you on that cheery note). The John Olson painting looked like a neuron to me, in case you were wondering why I included it...ha!

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What season?

We've just finished the HSC Trials so exam season is over.

It's not quite Spring, though it's beginning to feel like Winter is over.

I'm not quite sure what season it is at the moment.

So it's short and sweet from me this week.

(Though I believe we're heading into a brief rainy season with potential flooding - so Sydney roads and trains if nothing else will be a mess).

The photos are because it's been so long since we've had a vaguely decent sunrise.  

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The memory of lost objects.

A few years ago a friend gave me this quirky hand towel for Christmas. I was puzzled (and delighted) as I'd seen it before but couldn't place it. I decided it must have been the hand towel in the bathroom of the hotel we stayed in Ho Chi Minh city. But from time to time, when I saw it, it would make me think. I wasn't so sure...but I knew it was somewhere.

While staying at my Mum's recently, I saw it! My dad had them. He had them apparently from before they were married or at least before they moved to Japan. He worked Borneo and Malaysia for a few years, then based in Singapore travelled to Hong Kong a lot. So he would have picked them up there. (Towel origin here & here).  

I must have seen these insignificant objects all my childhood and yet I never registered them. Which reminds me of something that was said in a Harvard history course I did, that it's the most common objects that get lost to time, as no one thinks they're important enough to keep.

What I found most interesting, was that my brain rummaged through memories and picked a specific moment that it thought was most probable. I could 'see' it hanging in the bathroom, though I couldn't really see the rest of the bathroom beyond the tiles and towel rack. It furnished me with a false memory that I didn't question, though it did nag at something at the back of my brain from time to time.

I think that's why when looking for lost keys you often 'see' them on a desk or hook when they aren't there. You brain is trying to helpfully fill in the blanks for you with probably outcomes.

Memory is not concrete but a recreation of facts that our brain thinks is helpful. "Memory belongs to the imagination. Human memory is not like a computer which records things; it is part of the imaginative process, on the same terms as invention. Alain Robbe-Grillet

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Ominous

The light was dramatic so I took this photo one morning, but on my phone, it looked like it was in B&W. When playing with the filters, in the phone library I couldn't tell them apart (the colour and B&W versions). However, less evident on the laptop, in the larger format.

The sky is certainly odd though...(Compare here)

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The world in B&W

This B&W version of this photo is dull and shadowy, when in real life, it looked B&W anyway, but with a more dramatic light. See here.

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August Audio Books

 I read 4 books while I was away but since I got back three weeks ago, I've only listened to books, and finished one paperback title which I started while travelling.

That sort of makes me sad but it's where I'm at.

However, these should be available through your library borrowing (if in Australia).

From BorrowBox.

I did not really get into this book. I should have because I found the time period interesting, and the historical location. I also really liked there was a Japanese bomber as well as the Darwin locals, so you got two insights into the events. However, it's too long and I just didn't care by the end. Which I'm sorry to say as I know he's beloved and I really enjoyed Boy Swallows Universe, even though it's not my usual thing. So feel free to correct me.

I really enjoyed this book. I devoured it in 2 days. I know there's been a lot of complaints about this title, and on twitter there was a thread about it being the most overhyped book and biggest let down. I found it the other way around, but I hadn't really heard anything about it except it was about the Insta trad wife craze. I don't follow any of those, and one complaint was that she was so unlikeable, but I thought we were meant to think that, so I found her character funny (laughing at her, not with her) and hypercritical from the start, but I felt that was what we were meant to feel about her. So when she talked about the Angry women, I laughed that I was one of them, and that was how we are viewed. As for implausibility, I read the Shari Franke book, having known nothing about 8 Passengers and that book was unfathomable and yet real. It was completely incomprehensible so I didn't think this was over the top at all. It does perplex me that this trad wife promotion is popular, so I thought it was an interesting insight into the hypocrisy and potential damage of it all - very different to a stay at home mum, please note. I'm not casting shade there. I didn't see what was coming, and it's an easy, fun read.

From Libby.

I picked this book for the title - as my feet are also my focus with age. It's written by the writer of The Dressmaker and covers both ageing  and some Hollywood adventures. I enjoyed it but I did at times find it a little depressing. We all age at different rates but as things slow down I lament the fun that will evaporate. I have one crew that love festivals and dancing, but most of my friends do not. With my mum at the moment, her talk of her husband's decline and care was really depressing for me. She covers a lot so I'm pretty sure there's something for everyone in it.

I thought I already wrote a review on this but I can't find it so sorry if I'm repeating myself. He is a very good writer, and at times the work is heavy to process. This is a memoir style, and a flawed human is looking back on moments they feel are significant in some way - but as we humans do, they aren't necessarily what we traditionally call milestones. It jumps around, as our thoughts do. It dresses up others actions and intentions. I spent quite a bit of the book feeling unease (in reviews it is often described as haunting, and I can't argue with that). It's an old man (a character, not Banville himself) writing down his thoughts. It won the Booker Prize in 2005. I enjoyed this a lot but it's not an easy read - I can't really explain why. I had to concentrate a lot more than I usually do for audio books. I think reading this book would be better. (If you do read it, this is quite an interesting discussion - but don't listen to it before, as there are detailed spoilers). My review of Banville's Snow is here. 

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