Wildwood Nesting in the Hills of Mudgee: Rob Krause is Highly Recommended

Notwithstanding our trip to Sydney .... the World was encircled by the Mudgee Hills, with Eurunderee as a centre. Mudgee, the town, five miles away was inside the World: Sydney was somewhere on the edge of the World, or just behind. I used to describe Sydney as a place 170 miles from Eurunderee.” 

~ Henry Lawson  --- The son of a Norwegian seaman, Niels Larsen  ('From Mudgee Hills to London Town': A Critical Biography of Henry Lawson )

Eurunderee WildWood of Henry Lawson Fame

Rob and Jude of WildWood fame not only shared with us their passion for the local flora and fauna, but also antipodean books, stories, poetry and paintings. The huge size empire-like beds were so comfortable that Media Dragons are now hunting down a triple king bed ...

We explored the beauty of nearby picturesque Bylong Valley as it goes well with Mudgee's eclectic lifestyle. In the Valley we spotted variety of birds such as the stunning Lyrebird and to boot Goanna and tiger snake also showed their faces   ...

As we learned that the Bylong Valley is under threat from Korean state owned mining ... So we are probably among the last tourists to enjoy the amazing landscapes ... It reminded us so much of Tyson's Dorrigo as it was so green and lush  KEPCO: Bylong Valley under threat

Next time we wil will take a picnic tucker to that amazing aboriginal sacred site where Brett Whitney left a few absinthe induced creativity on the cave walls of The Drip ... Lets hope that will not be mined by some foreign government ...

Mudgee' reputedly derives from the Wiradjuri Aboriginal term 'Moothi' meaning 'nest in the hills'
There are plenty of things to see and do. The vineyards of Mudgee, the quaint villages of Hill End and Sofala and most of all the Lue Pottery at Lue...

Empire-like Bed for 7 foot Amazons

In a nutshell, Wildwood Guesthouse is Mudgee accommodation nestled in 150 acres of undulating grasses and rambling woodlands. Wildwood Guesthouse is an expansive four bedroom homestead with a contemporary Australian style. The bed and breakfast is beautifully appointed, Wildwood is an accommodation destination for those seeking privacy and indulgence in an idyllic bush setting.
From the moment you enter the tree lined driveway you can sense the peace and that you are getting away from it all. Wildwood Guesthouse is in the heart of Mudgee's wine growing district and only minutes from the centre of town. WildWoodMudgee.com.au (

Email: rob@wildwoodmudgee.com.au
Address: 5 Minutes from the town via "Henry Lawson Drive," 58 Tierney Lane, Mudgee NSW 2850, Australia

Phone:+61 2 6373 3701)

Historically speaking, Wildwood has been synonymous with gracious country living for generations. 'Eurunderee' is the original name for the valley just outside Mudgee where Wildwood now sits. The ghost of Henry Lawson, poet of the people, is everywhere at Eurunderee, and the Wildwood property is the valley he wrote about as Sapling Gully. For the bush bard, Sapling Gully was synonymous with the hardships of gold mining.

There is no television or video system, but there is a CD player in the lounge area for general use. Each room has French doors opening to a broad verandah, which looks across the property. The bedrooms have superb Damask linen, fluffy towels and sweet country soap. The lounge and dining rooms are spacious, and the lounge room has high, beamed ceilings and a comforting, wood-burning fireplace.

There are vases of fresh flowers everywhere, and platters of fruit, vegetables, fresh eggs, and nuts. It just feels as though you are visiting friends in the country! The house is made of rammed earth. This method is to erect a frame and ram earth into it to form a solid wall. The inside walls of Wildwood are a wonderful earthy colour, and the natural mud gives excellent insulation.
You are likely to see wallabies, kangaroos, rabbits, foxes, echidnas and the property's lovable dogs. Wild birds are prolific ...

Bret Wwhitley Painting Mudgee at Drip Rocky Gorge

Reviews circa 2001 2009: The guesthouse is in a valley known as Eurunderee, which Henry Lawson once wrote about. It has the perfect veranda on which to relax on a Saturday afternoon while watching kangaroos eat grass close by.
Wildwood Guesthouse at Mudgee
Wildwood review circa 2001
Mudgee and Wildwood Reviews by US travellers

 Coda:

“The perfect place with the perfect host” ...

Tripadvisor.com and Reviews of Wildwood Guesthouse Mudgee

Mudgee Vinyards Nesting in the hills

Lawson was first published in The Bulletin in 1887 with the poem Song of Australia - external site. The Bulletin was an influential publication which promoted a particular set of views - egalitarianism, unionism, and 'Australianism'. It was also white and male.
Lawson was a regular contributor, as was Banjo Paterson. A series of verses were published where Lawson and Paterson debated their different perspectives on the Australian bush - Lawson claiming Paterson was a romantic, and Paterson claiming Lawson was full of doom and gloom.

Tony Moore, in his 1997 paper about bohemian culture, says:
The bohemian traits revered by 'The Bulletin' writers are almost a caricature of the Australian national type propagated by the journal: mateship and blokey bonding to the exclusion of family life; hostility to religion, personified by the Protestant wowser; ironic humour; a fondness for alcohol, pubs and gambling; pre-occupation with a free-wheeling Australian identity (overlaid with francophilia and Irish nationalism) invariably opposed to a conservative Englishness; and an occasional flirtation with political causes such as socialism and republicanism. The identification of the bohemian with male mateship remains a strong thread in the Australian tradition, but one contested by women like Mary Gilmore in the 1890s, Dulcie Deamer in the 1920s, Joy Hester in the 1940s and Germaine Greer in the 1960s.

The Drip Rock Formations

"The bush consists of stunted, rotten native apple trees, no undergrowth. Nineteen miles to the nearest civilisation - a shanty on the main road ... There is nothing to see, however, and not a soul to meet. You might walk for twenty miles along this track without being able to fix a point in your mind, unless you are a bushman. This is because of the everlasting, maddening sameness of the stunted trees."
(Source: The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson)

Unhackable Cyber World

Baseball legend Yogi Berra dies at 90 BBC. EM’s favorite saying, “Predictions are hard – especially about the future.” Mine is “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

KMart hacked

It is a big deal for cybersecurity, says Iman Shames from the University of Melbourne in Australia. But he says there are always ways to attack hardware, even if the software is impregnable. Hackers might be able to spoof a device’s sensors or jam incoming communications or other signals, which could be just as devastating. Unhackable kernel cybercrime

Social media sight Facebook went down worldwide overnight for ten minutes and predictably everyone lost their mind. Early reports suggest that all 1.49 billion Facebook users across the globe were unable to access their accounts, according to CBC News. Users who tried to logon were met by a page with the message: “Sorry, something went wrong”. Some took it better than others as many people flocked to other forms of social media to either lament the situation or poke fun at the growing hysteria.

Unfriending employees on Facebook and not saying good morning could constitute workplace bullying, the workplace tribunal has found. Rachael Roberts was a real estate agent with 10 years' industry experience. Since November 2012, she has been working at Tasmanian real estate agency VIEW Launceston. Facebook unfriending constitutes bullying says workplace tribunal

Under the Ground of Arras Back to WWI and WWII

Andrey Melnichenko: From College Dropout to One of Russia’s Wealthiest Businessmen 565 million mega yacht is super strange

Volkswagen chief quits over emissions scandal as car industry faces crisis Guardian

VW’s Clean Diesel Ads Now Make Us Feel Dirty New York Magazine

Volkswagen Case Spotlights Lawmakers From Competing Auto Manufacturing States International Business Times

The new iPhone goes on sale today and those dedicated fans who’ve been camping outside Sydney’s Apple store will presumably have their hard work rewarded. Aussie customers will be some of the first in the world to purchase the new device with one tech journalist, Lindsay Handmer, camping out for a whole two weeks to make sure he was the first in line. It might sound crazy to most, and rightfully so, but in his defence he reportedly intends to auction off the product and give the money to Mission Australia, a charity that supports those living on the street.

Arras Underground created by Aussies and New Zealanders

US government hack stole fingerprints of 5.6 million federal employeesGuardian

Good Writting

The writer is more servant than master of his story.

— John Gardner, who died on this date in 1982

Real men do cry. Public male weeping was ubiquitous across the world for most of recorded history. Where did the tears go?

Good Writing? The Key Is What You Leave Out 

John McPhee: Words are too easy to play on. When I joined The New Yorker, in 1965, I left puns behind. Not that I have never suffered a relapse. In the nineteen-seventies, I turned in a manuscript containing a pun so fetid I can’t remember it. My editor then was Robert Bingham, who said, “We should take that out.” The New Yorker 

Wordsworthian breeze, Tennysonian damp, Dickensian fog: Writing has always been weatherbound. "English literature begins in the cold"...  Imrichian Cold River

What does the amerikan short story do well these days? Where is it failing or lacking? George Saunders and Ben Marcus discuss  »

When the German director Margarethe von Trotta was approached to make a film about philosopher Hannah Arendt’s coverage of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, she was less than enthusiastic. “How”, she asked, “can I make a film about a philosopher, someone who sits and thinks?” Putting intellectuals on film, she assumed, would not be easy: sitting around and thinking is pretty much what they do. It is true that there is precious little cinematic excitement in the academic’s day-to-day, typically more a case of Bob Jones and the Board of Studies than Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Philosophy in cinema

“It is essential that we be convinced of the goodness of human nature, and we must act as though people are good.” Good HuMan Nature ... Leads to Good Writing

Neither victim or avenger, Primo Leviwas a witness. And though he bristled at the label "Holocaust writer," it's in that role that he matters most 

Obsessions with Doors of Arras MMXII 

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

— Roald Dahl, born on this date in 1916

Handwriting, according to some, is an anachronism. Finland has now dropped it from its national curriculum. And so many American states have also removed it as an educational requirement that it now only makes news when state officials opt to keep it.  Does handwriting have a future?

“The 12 books they’ve chosen comprise the most intriguing and wonderfully unexpected list in the prize’s 22-year-history, an enticing mix of established names and emerging talent, and clear affirmation for the work being done by this country’s independent publishers.” The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Writers from Charles University struggling ...

Speaking of foolproof crimes: Hot Lotto rigger sentenced to 10 years (Des Moines Register). The case involved an alleged inside job by an IT professional at the Multi-State Lottery:

The case has enthralled Iowans and gained national attention since late December 2011, when a New York attorney tried to claim — just hours before it would expire — a Hot Lotto ticket worth $14.3 million on behalf of a trust incorporated in Belize. The identity of the original ticket purchaser was a mystery.
Authorities with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation began looking into Tipton after several people identified him as the hooded man in a video showing the ticket being purchased at a Des Moines QuikTrip. At the time, Tipton was the information security director for the Urbandale-based Multi-State Lottery Association that provides games such as Hot Lotto to lotteries nationwide.
[Assistant Attorney General] Sand told jurors at trial that Tipton installed a self-deleting software program, called a rootkit, onto lottery drawing computers to manipulate the outcome of a Dec. 29, 2010, draw. Tipton then filtered the winning ticket he bought through a friend, Robert Clark Rhodes II, from Texas in an attempt to claim the money, Sand said.

There’s a reason lottery workers aren’t allowed to play the lottery. The lawyer and Belize trust didn’t help the whole thing slip by unnoticed.

Barstool Stories 

By Hal Hlavinka

In the Czech Republic, Hrabal is a mythic figure. The website for his favorite pub, U Zlatého tygra, has six tabs: Home, Beer/Cheese, Menu, Bohumil Hrabal, History, and Contacts. His 1994 meeting with ambassador Madeleine Albright and then presidents Havel and Clinton has been archived as both legend and link. The man and his work are preservations of Czech history, connecting old Prague, the “glory and downfall of the cultural boom of the ’60s” (to quote the Tygra’s website), and the city’s globalization under capitalism. Hrabal has come to represent a kind of nostalgia for a lost Czech time, somewhere back in the post-Soviet ’80s, or the pre-crackdown ’60s, or maybe even the democratic ’20s—anytime but now. In his intro to The Little Town Where Time Stood Still, Joshua Cohen identifies this nostalgia as Bohemian in general and Hrabalian in particular: “To feel born too late for a true life (whatever that is), and to feel that as a failure and that failure as ennobling, are very Czech emotions.” This complex blend of feeling—a yearning for the past that invigorates the presence of the present—courses through Hrabal’s best work, and is on full display in The Little Town Where Time Stood Still and Mr. Kafka and Other Tales from the Time of the Cult.

Well, in America, we mean. “All told, 10 of his books have been published in the U.S. since the Nobel announcement last October. English translations of six more novels are due later this year and in 2016.” Here’s a Q&A with the 70-year-old French author. Wall Street Journal 

“In its first study on author income since 2009, the Authors Guild delivers some jarring, if unsurprising, data. The survey, which will be released next week, indicates, among other things, that the majority of authors would be living below the Federal Poverty Level if they relied solely on income from their writing.” Publishers Weekly 

Mary McGrory, for much of her career the only female pundit in the room, wasn't shy about giving advice to colleagues: “Subtlety is overrated ..."»

Australia’s top 100 books: Brigid Delaney, Guardian Australia’s features editor, wrote about Australia’s Better Readings’ list of Top 100 Books. From The Guardian Australia’s book blog:

They are not necessarily great books but they are good books, books that people read, enjoy, talk about, lend to others, escape into and re-read over the years.
There is nothing pretentious or highbrow about the Better Reading Top 100 list released on Tuesday. If you are a book snob – or lover of serious, high literature – then look away now. This list will have very little on it that will please you (apart from a couple of Austens, maybe). Where is James Joyce? Or Virginia Woolf? Or even Australia’s most exacting prose stylist, Helen Garner? Where are all the difficult books?

They are good stories, Delaney allows, “cracker yarns,” but being a good reader, she posits, might not be a skill Australians have mastered:

Perhaps instead of “best books”, the list should be re-packaged as “best stories”. There are some cracker yarns here, like The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (20), or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (29). It’s not surprising that most of the books on the list have been made into films.

But where is William Faulkner? Or Nabokov’s Lolita? Or Australia’s own Patrick White? The pleasures of cracking a difficult book are deeper and more mysterious than the soporific delights of poolside page-turners such as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (34).

One could argue, though, that in a world where reading for pleasure sometimes seems to be a dwindling art, to see as well rounded and diverse a list as this one is a delight.

Wedding Bells inside the Capertee Valley: The Grandiest Canyon in the World

After Bullabara at C's Blue Mountain retreat, we are star gazing and bird watching with Michael and Yvonne at Capertee ;-) The cheeky lyrebirds are imitating wedding bells for the German and Antipodean spiritual connection ... Dominic and Kerry cooked up a feast and Ralph made sure all the wine and spirits were consumed ;-)

Capertee Valley is surrounded by the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, Wollemi Wilderness, Coorongooba, Gardens of Stone, Capertee National Park and Bicentennial trail at Glen Alice and the Great Dividing range in the north of the valley.

Bordering on Wollemi National Park and the Blue Mountains, Capertee Valley is the largest enclosed valley of Australia provides spectacular views of rock formations and escarpments of what has been called Australia’s unknown Grand Canyon. It is the second largest canyon in the world Grandest Canyon Capertee It is an advantage to own three pairs of eyes as there is a feast of Wildlife

The Capertee Valley is on the outskirts of the Mudgee region, toward Lithgow. It includes Glen Davis and Glen Alice, both very historic villages. The Valley is the largest enclosed Gorge in the Southern Hemisphere, being almost 30km across and sitting about 800m above sea-level and until recently, a Hidden Gem of lyrebirds. The area has recently been re-discovered by tree changers wanting a peaceful refuge from Sydney’s busy lifestyle. Its present economy is farming and mining, plus whatever the often semi-retired professionals bring to it, whether artists, writers, IT communicators or in the hospitality industry. History As work-life balance worsens in Australia, Sweden continues with its renowned family friendly policies by shifting to a six hour working day. Businesses across the Scandinavian country are implementing the change so workers can spend more time at home or doing the activities they enjoy. Sweden is moving towards a six hour working day as Australian hours increase

In Cold Blood ...

Global media labeled the home invasion in Cheshire, Connecticut a 21st century of "In Cold Blood."

There were plenty of similarities between the senseless multiple murders of the Petit family and that of the Clutters. The motive was robbery. And in both situations there was none of financial windfall the miscreants expected.

The one difference was that among the Petits, there was a survivor - the father, Dr. William Petit II.. Of course, for a long time, Petiti probably wished he hadn't recovered from the beating the robbers gave him before raping and killing his wife and two teenage daughters.

Daily, he then attended both phases - guilt and sentencing - of the two murderers' trials. He even testified.

Few anticipated that he would make it back emotionally. He appeared drained. He was overweight.

But time can heal. He started a new chapter in his life by leaving medicine and operating a foundation for the victims of crimes. Freelance photographer, Christine Paluf, volunteered. Eventually they married. When son, William Petit III, was born, many in CT rejoiced. It was the kind of "happy ending" no one had predicted for this tormented man.

To New York Post reporter, Maureen Callahan, Petit noted that  his flashbacks only last minutes, not hours or days. The amazing thing is that he was able to rebuild a life not far from the scene of the crime - in the CT area of Farmington. Some wondered if he should simply uproot and settle in another nation, change his name, and find a mission or some reason to stay alive.

The takeaway may be that healing is possible in-place. The Horror can be reconfigured into simply the past. Petit is among those demonstrating that the past doesn't have to pre-determine the present.

Suicide, both active and passive, used to be a private affair. Virgina Woolf put pebbles in her skirt and went to the cold river, alone. My mother didn't tell anyone she stopped taking her blood pressure meds and that was that. Now, checking out or the intention to do that is staged as high drama. Call it Theatre of the Deranged.

On live television,Vester Lee Flanagan IImurdered the anchor reading the news and a cameraman. He posted the video on his Facebook page. Then, he offed himself in his car.

Adam Lanza also created the drama of screaming little children before he checked out.

I have a hunch James Holmes expected a version of suicide by cop, which didn't happen.

There will many more high-drama suicides which are simultaneously homicides. The only way these can be prevented is for the media to stop covering them. The media won't do that, of course. 

Stopping the media from making these deranged murderers famous might only happen if Donald Trump becomes U.S. President. He knows how to get things done. Several times already he has shown he can take on media, including the gang at Fox News. 

Until something is done, we are all potential actors and actresses in someone else's suicide drama.

Hedgehog like echidna filled with ticks and Media Dragon Suffered Jervis Bay Sep 2014

Public speaking coaches are making a bundle helping executives, politicos, and even plain-vanilla working stiffs looking for jobs be "authentic." The BigAuthentic has become the price of entry for success. Those perceived an Not Authentic aren't allowed into the game.

Few see through this current craze. The exception is those in the legal sector. From the get-go, lawyers are trained to put on a face to meet the faces out there.

That ranges from the best fit of a persona for a blue-collar jury to the poker face at the negotiating table. Laterals prepare for job interviews by collecting and analyzing data about the law firm culture. Based on that, they put together an appropriate presentation of self.

The great thought leaders had no time for the myth of authenticity. William Shakespeare had down cold that all the world's a stage and we are all players on it. Sociologist Erving Goffman taught his student that even the most unsophisticated resident of a French village got it to put on different faces for meeting and greeting each social circle.

The Machiavellians among us, of course, will continue to leverage the concept of authenticity, though. That's what you do if you want influence and power in a society which has lost its ability to insulate itself from the field force of nutty barrowman memes.

Poetry of two verses Eager Eagles Sep 2014 Jervis Bay

I am among those wondering if Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis is enjoying this 21st century version of Sweet Suffering. She refused to marry couples of the same sex. As USA Today reports:

" ... U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning found [Kim Davis] in contempt of court ... [and] placed her in the custody of U.S. marshals and had her taken to Carter County jail." 

Davis may not be conscious of the joy involved in being a kind of martyr. But, I have a hunch, based on my own experience, it makes up for any inconveniences of jail life.

“We continue to be transfixed by upper-crust lifestyles in a primitive, almost unconscious way, equally covetous and condemning of all that glitters, just out of reach. What is absent, it seems to me, from our sense of the wealthy, is an understanding of their flesh-and-bloodness—of the fact that they, like Shylock, bleed when they are pricked and have miseries peculiar to them, against which immunity cannot be bought.”

Read the story at The New Yorker

Just Watching Big Brother at Jervis Bay Sep 2014

That post-catastrophe World is captured in the 2014 novel "A History of the Future: A World Made By Hand." The author is James Howard Kunstler. The biggest shock is how fragile the concept of law is. Next is the reality how it wouldn't take too many intersecting events to wipe out life as we have known it in the 21st century.

A writer, I would have to return to the manual typewriter I brought along for freshman year in college in 1963. Since there would only be candle-light, few of us hustlers would be able to pull all-nighters. Ambition would be limited by the slow transportation of horses and sleds. Instead of being preoccupied about socking enough away for retirement, we would have to focus on just staying alive.

Knots: Tying Things Together

The DOJ Is Finally Conceding It Prosecutes Corporate Crime All Wrong Bloomberg and  Companies Must Find Fraudsters to Duck Penalties, U.S. Says Bloomberg

New U.S. prosecution policy is recipe for corporate conflict: lawyers Reuters. My goodness!

KPMG offshore ‘sham’ deceived tax authorities, CRA alleges CBC

Honeyeater at Jervis Bay Sep 2014

Impact of urbanization on US surface climate –Why We Need Trees ..

Australia’s crawling Internet speed signifies wider fiscal failure 

“The U.S. Census Bureau today released Census Business Builder: Small Business Edition, a new Web tool that allows business owners and entrepreneurs to easily navigate and use key demographic and economic data to help guide their research into opening a new business or adding to an existing one.

As George Osborne kowtows, the world sinks beneath a sea of Chinese overcapacity Telegraph

Trunks of Trees filled with pebbles - Little Bay with deep holes

In the history of civilization, beauty always trumped brains, pun intended. Helen of Troy had the face which launched a thousand ships. Princess Diana boasted she was "thick as a brick" up there.

But, it does help politically and economically if a woman has both. That was the platform on which America's version of Camelot was built. Jackie was a stunner, at least compared to Mamie Eisenhower. And she had done enough bookwork and thinking to be perceived as culturally sophisticated.

Markets in everything: “installed in Czech bar…”

Central banks have made the rich richerFinancial Times. In case you still harbored doubts…

Robots’ Next Big Job: Trash Pickup?Dice Insights 

Mapped: how the sharing economy is sweeping the world Telegraph. I wish there was a way to fine every journalist who promotes the new push push to pauperize labor via the “sharing economy” Orwellianism.

NSWCCA/2015