Sunday, April 17, 2005



Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
-Margaret Mead

In the interest of objectivity, since I complained about the horrible April weather in Sydney when I first invaded Cronulla a year or so ago, I think I ought to admit that this weekend is just sensational ...
To boot, the People of Cronulla have embraced the warm and comfortable Grind as well as its Barista Richard with full arms. Nobody makes an expresso for your blood stream as good as Richard brews. Nobody understands better the desperate need amongst the locals to belong, that strange bohemian hunger, which can only be sated by cool and perceptive publicans and baristas ;-D While Richard has a knack for enriching the lives of everyone who enters the kofi shrine there is one gal who not only likes his manners or his passion for expresso, but who loves the creator so much she is willing to risk it all and say ‘till death do us part.’ I understand the wedding is in June and the honeymoon destination is London and beyond. I remember well our honeymoon in London back in June 1984 it was great to explore the Great Britain and especially to meet all those Rossiters and Reids. The smallest hole in the wall espresso bar with the biggest following

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Tossing a Pebble
I love reading that untamed writer Emily Maquire who from time to time spills her soul inside the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald. Like this weekend she asks Me - a middle-class writer and teacher - a hippie? I could not find a link, but go to page 12 of the Spectrum and digest the entire story entitled Hippie hippie shakedown: The ideas that ordinary people ... can and do make a difference ... The challenge is the same one that Walt Whitman issued 150 years ago: ... hate tyrants ... re-examine all you have been told at school and church or in any book, dismiss whatever isults your soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Another freelance writer I enjoy reading is Alison Cameron and on page 14 of the Spectrum she negotiates the steely factions of the schoolyards in Sydney. Ach and how much truth is poured in the jest ;-D. As digital immigrants who have lived uprooted and undomesticated lives with our two bambinos in East Sydney, inner Prague, inner Adelaide, Brissie’s Wilson Hills and Scarborough and now the SHIRE we identify with the deep sense of humour of the coffee mums of the gated communities ;-)

My Grand Obsession with the Mad Master: Most of the people who are willing to be interviewed are not worth interviewing. The uninterviewed are the ones you really want - the recluses, the crackpots who disappeared from public view decades ago and retain an aura of inaccessibility, perverseness, danger even. Forget Hello! Think Goodbye.


When I become self-critical I always ask myself, Who are you to be perfect? Too much of our time is spent worrying about what others are thinking when most people are not thinking about us at all.
Creative streaks [ I believe in a world that does not exist but by believing it, I create it. - Nikos Kazantzaka Ah, You're Such A Romantic (Just Don't Admit It) ; Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. -Leo Tolstoy Miracles materialise when mateship really matters ]
• · There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. - Henry David Thore : The word root of the European race and the word ‘ slav ’ stands for a stranger or a barbarian - in most dictionaries the root usually ends with an E Get more profit out of the third world: Got Slaves? ; Dan Hart of Brisbane has self-published the story of his life culled from over 70 years of diary entries. If nothing else it shows a degree of dedication most of us would envy Mountain of memories makes for the story of a lifetime
• · · As Paul Moravec explained in an interview earlier this year with the San Francisco Chronicle, he has been suicidal, hospitalized twice for clinical depression and, 10 years ago, was treated with electroshock therapy. Fortunately, Paul not only survived but prevailed, and even managed to compose a remarkable piece of music, Mood Swings, that was directly inspired by his illness. “What we need,” he added, “is a different word for clinical depression—a new word. One that has the same emotional impact as, say, leukemia.” Like melancholy prince of his musical 'Fantasy,' Moravec used imagination to overcome despair ; Exclusive for under 40 and people who have a life Thorpe defects to Foxtel
• · · · Another best-selling book relating a victim's story from the Arab world has been questioned, with an Australian academic challenging the Palestinian memoir Burned Alive by Souad. Historian challenges Palestinian bestseller ; Robert Adamson was a hopeless thief. He never expected to get caught and he was always caught. He stole odd things: a bird from a zoo, a Gestetner copier from his school, farmed trout, milk money, petrol and Customline cars. Inside Out: An autobiography; Rise and Rise of Area - Zone 51: Terence West: Best Selling book by Double Dragon Fallen Angels ; Surreal Vienna
• · · · · Ever since the Belle de Jour blog won the best written category in the Guardian Unlimited weblog awards back in 2003, media speculation over the identity of its author has been rife. Will the real Belle de Jour please stand up? ; Belle de Jour ; Having a few problems with the translation? You know, rosebuds? As in flowers
• · · · · · Some are single through choice; others have it thrust upon them Back to square one ; #1 Most viewed articles this weekend! Revenge of the Nature: Some want physical closeness but not intercourse, and they may not be the rarity the rest of the community thinks. For those who identify themselves as asexual, there's nothing quite as dull as the pleasures of the flesh. Some people are outing themselves as asexual, preferring to go to bed with a good book, like Freezing River, than someone else When sex isn't on the menu: No sex please, I'm not into it