Photographed the beautiful National Trust Property, the Eclipse Theatre, which sits on the New England Highway, Tenterfield. It sort of represents what the Country Independents care about. A cultural metaphor. Motorists speed past The Eclipse which nourishes her country just as the lovely Sydney Opera House nourishes Sydney. One of the movies shown recently at the Eclipse out there on the Queensland border was Twilight Eclipse. How's that for a cultural statement? Wonder what the National Broadband Network will do to the Eclipse Theatre? Could go digital, eh? Could be on an Australian architectural heritage trail? After all, Australia's a country, not a city now. Wink. Wink.
That's why we have seen the annunciation of Country Independents who have today anointed a Gillard Labor Government.
Wanted to publish Dorothea Mackellar's My Country - which I would have thought belonged to Australia not to "estate" - but they reserve the right to refuse use.
""Dear Lisa,
Thank you for your enquiry.
I have contacted the Estate regarding this permission. I will get back to you when I get a response.
Regards""" - - -
"""Dear Lisa,
Best wishes ----- """
"
Next time you're standing at a bus station and you raise your hand to hail your bus only to stand helplessly by as your bus goes past without stopping - smile. Maybe it was this bus from heart and soul and it wasn't your time. This bus picks up it's passengers only when it's time to move out of this world and on to the next. I just wonder - if this wonderful feel-good movie's central idea were real - what does it mean that Brisbane has buses that go missing leaving passengers stranded in queues 60 deep at the Queen Street bus depot. Where did that bus go? (The bus comes at the end of the clip)
And then how is it that three buses - two of them the 176 - can turn up at the same time at 7.30am at Holland Park park'n'ride. Apparently, the three buses blocked the entry to the park'n'ride guaranteeing that at least one passenger could not park in order to catch his regular bus. So goes the story told me by a gentleman who sat next to me the night we all stood bemused waiting for that missing bus at the Queen Street bus depot (I don't call that place a station it's not worthy of such a title). Let's call Sir David Attenborough to study the bus ecology. Let's call a clairvoyant! Let's call the Ghost Busters! Someone must have the answers. Or are all of us passengers just ghosts - I think some bus drivers are ghosts of people. I feared for one young man who was extremely polite and helpful because when he looked in my eyes I saw a ghost of man. I include the next video simply to show a great actor in full flight: Robert Downey Jr before he was Ironman. He does it so well. Something to think about when you're on the buses of Brisbane - to ease your pain. A-ooooouuuuuw!
The first paper bag had a V-bottom. Ah mass production of packaging! How far we've come.
Imagine how special that little V-bottomed paper bag must have been to people who had no other choice but to wrap goods in paper and tie it with string.
Perhaps the most adorable thing about honest little paper bags today is the fact that you can put anything in a plain little bag and almost anything it contains will be more valuable than the bag.
Packaging costs so much more than the contents of most things we buy today - the price is so inflated by all the advertising, marketing, packaging, branding and differentiation.
Appearances are always important - even back in 1852 - but the difference between reality and the "appearances" today is quite sinister.
The parade of human imperfections turns into a horror show if you sit on a bus comparing it to the flashing images of pert young things pouting on the backs, sides of buses, in bus shelters, billboards, free newspapers, shop windows ... All the real people running to work are all odd shapes, wearing daggy, unco-ordinated fashions, too tall, too dumpy, too broad, too bumpy (including moi, I'm afraid to say.)
Yes, it's shallow. But we all do it, without thinking mostly, don't we?
The most grotesque thing about it is that we believe that the appearance of substance seems to be a higher calling than achieving substance.
"It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit" - Noel Coward, Blithe Spirit. (1941).
Stradbroke Weather: Squalls from Lisa Yallamas on Vimeo.
Two whales frolicked in Brisbane's Moreton Bay off Brisbane but the beaches were closed. Squally weather marred the first October weekend on Stradbroke Island.
As we waited in the car in a queue for the Big Red Cat - a ferry - the kids were concerned about driving a car onto a boat.
"Can we move around?" "Do we keep our seat belts on?" "Are you sure we can drive on to a boat?"
The Big Red Cat has a little cafe that does a roaring trade and has an enclosed observation deck as a major drawcard - why else would you pay $20 for hot chocolate and tea for five people? The view.
The cafe was calling completed order numbers out before the last car drove on to the Big Red Cat! I felt sorry for the old Stradbroke Island Ferry - we dubbed it the Blue Dog.
The Blue Dog chases the Big Red Cat over Moreton Bay ;)
Whales too far off for a Flip camera - which is now dead. Interesting phenomenon with Flips you erase the video and it tells you it's still a full disc.
I found the word "cripple" falling from my lips when explaining to a child what a buggy was doing driving down the middle of the airport corridor.
"It transports cripples and old people" - I blurted as we hurtled towards the Gate 19 - still under my own steam at this point thank-you very much, not riding the buggy yet.
I expected to be pulled up for being politically incorrect but I was wrong.
"What's crippled?" - was the child's response.
Well, there you go! - a little voice in my head exclaimed - Social engineering actually works.
The word "cripple" makes people cringe - it's so poignant and emotionally charged.
Well, not to this generation of little people. All those years of struggle to weed the word out of the vocabulary has actually worked.
And yes, the Oxford Dictionary says the term is no long acceptable as a noun referring to a person.
Disabled person is usually used instead.
I remember schoolyard bullies and jokers taunting kids with the word "cripple".
I'm betting the existence of golliwogs that this kind of behaviour still goes on today.
Has the extermination of "cripple" really changed society's perceptions?
A leopard doesn't change its spots and human beings aren't born gracious.
Can social engineering actually change the human race - not just the vocabulary?
Well, shortly after (as we wait for the plane) the kids are stretching their lips tight across their faces and laughing.
Offensive behaviour - racist behaviour - they were making fun of the shape of African people's lips.
A UNICEF poster featuring two African children was pasted on a bin - the poster was about poverty, the kids were on about appearances.
Social engineering can't breed out comparativism - the human race learns about itself and the world by comparing itself to everything.
(( And yes comparativism is a word - as is *antidisestablishmentarianism*.
I learned this word from the kids who explained that their friend found it in an advanced dictionary. ))
Civilization governs us with laws - it tries to cripple the basest qualities of human nature.
Reminds me of There Will Be Blood - starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
But you have to believe in something beyond the law when it comes to walking the walk : character is revealed in what we do when no one's watching.
Spirituality requires us to over-ride instinct it seems - and apparently people today apparently are hungry for spirituality. I'm not so sure about that either.
The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology dates the "noun" back to about 1200 as "crupel... related to cryppan to crook, bend.
It became a verb "to lame or disable" in 1694.
So it took us 810 years to decide that the word cripple causes hurt, discrimination and alienation - not people.
Interesting. Don't you think?
On Twitter I heard that there are more than 23 million mobile phones being used in Australia. How marvelous! We are so advanced.
That's 23 million in a country of 20 million people - the population figure includes babies, toddlers, and some Depression Era oldies who throw their hands up in horror at the thought of a mobile phone.
Blame the Gen Ys and the Baby Boomers - because LORD KNOWS no one counts the forgotten Gen Xers now.
Knit one, pearl one, drop one ...
Has anyone noticed how these days you only ever hear about Gen Y and Baby Boomers?
Where exactly did Gen X go?
The Baby Boomers have reaped their rewards, had their good times, continue their good times while Gen Y whoop it up, spend it up while living at home, pushing up inflation, pushing up interest rates.
Meanwhile: Eyesight deteriorates, hair falls out, teeth yellow, spine curls - hey presto! There we are!
Some of us just drifted into Bunnings for a House & Garden outing and never emerged.
The duplicitous nature of physics becomes terrifyingly apparent when applied to mobile phones, weight gain and aging.
Incident report:
5pm on a bus somewhere in Brisbane a snotty-nosed Gen Y talks into her phone.
"Hi-i! Hey, I forgot to feed the goldfish this morning. Can you feed it? Great. See ya."
I do not kid you. ETA less than 20 minutes and she calls someone at home to feed her goldfish.
You know, I may be happy to fade out of this picture.
Though some of us do insist on bright red lipstick, dyed dark short cuts with yellow streaks, dangly earrings, gaudy specs and very expensive shirts and shoes - proof of life, apparently.
Never say die when you can spend $300 on hair - not to mention perfume to reek so genteel people faint around you.
Never say die when you can buy a fast car and trade in the old ball-and-chain for a new, younger ball-and-chain - proof of life.
And when a conversation is struck? But oh, such a rare pleasure!
Hold a smile. Appear interested. And listen.
Listen to each other's minds clicking over calculations: of age (as judged by the condition of teeth); of gaul (as judged by the twinkle of smugness in a young or self-deceived eye).
There it is. Your number's up and it's not Bingo!
There is of course an alternative: ignore each other entirely using the fade in, fade out reality edit. All this energy expended on mental warps.
Based on the law of energy conservation (basic physics), energy is never destroyed it is only converted into another state - converted into what in this case?
I'm always suspicious of people who lose weight because there's a few kilos lurking around looking for a place to settle.
If you know someone who has lost weight redouble your vigilance - it's cheaper than any other aging=fading defiance.
People always think you're younger if you're agile in mind and body.
But seriously, the proliferation of mobile phones is actually much more terrifying than weight gain or aging. The more phones there are, the less actual communication happens.
I'm waiting for Apple to issue the iPhone T5 - the first phone which dispenses with the voice function. Text only. Ticketyboo.
Why can't I have a phone that can sort Optus out with a barrage of constant texts when there's a problem likely to suck up half a day of precious life force? MM-mm?!!
VanityFinance.com (2013 headline) :: Telecom-Apple dwarfs US economy
- Killer Shop App tops the pop chart: It knows what you like and it has your credit card.
DOLLY COVER HEADLINE (2013) :: How to break up with your phone.
Your phone calls you: "I found the most darling pair of shoes! And they only cost $500!"
You: "Tell me you didn't!"
Phone: "I did!"
You: "If you don't stop spending then I'll trade you in..."
NEW SCIENTIST HEADLINE (2013) :: Phone calls God.
Ticketyboo.