A RIVER OF CONSCIOUSNESS...

Just back from Danny Boyle's 127 Hours (I wept at various stages of the film. I'm not sure I've ever put such emotional investment into a cinematic character)... Aron Rolston was interview on 2BL recently and said, pretty much, that he was euphoric when he cut his arm off... listening to fresh, semi-intriguing Moby ep... watching the frocks on the Oscars as I type (what the hell is Cate Blanchett wearing? Go Shaun Tan, go! how cool is Javier?)... questioning how God communicates his/her methodology/grand schemes when I feel sick and angry re. recent reports of burnt children, in Australian media (4 yr old twins in western suburbs of Melbourne badly injured when a garage exploded; 5 yr old horribly damaged when gas canister blew up on camping trip a day or so ago)... teaching my Yr 12s the Gothic-Romantic powerhouse that is Frankenstein (talk about well-drawn characters)... wondering how Liberal Australia still is... it seems a bloke with a Southern Cross tattoo isn't far away... just leave the Southern Cross in the Milky Way... knocked out that the original line up of Big Audio Dynamite have reformed (let's hope they tour here)... confused re. how Alice Springs' indigenous population can recover their dignity and intrinsic worth in the face of relentless alcohol-dependency, dope and crime (an insightful and sobering report by Nicolas Rothwell in The Australian got to me)... aghast some trendy spot in London is selling breast milk ice cream (who the hell would buy it?)... asking myself if Libya, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain etc. will really move towards some fresh democratic angle or if dictators and their unthinking minions will always prevail... stoked, surprised and bemused that I've been interviewed twice of late for local publications re. finding 110 species of birds in my home town of Bundanoon (that's 13% of Australia's mainland and Tasmanian birds)... chuffed I have old poems coming out with Islet and Meanjin soon (I will give details in a future post)... crossing my fingers re. the Judith Wright Poetry Prize judged by Peter Minter... trying to sort out the plot for a short story (set on Stewart Island in NZ) that I'm writing for Country Style's $5000 prize judged by Cate Kennedy... tramping Morton National Park regularly in case of bedazzlement... thanking God and the greater world for finding myself in a rewarding place right now... I could be so many desperate people on the other side of the world... count your blessings, sew them to you heart.

LJ, February 28 2011.