June 29, 2013 @ 1:11 AM

Passionate rivalry...

On the day after the governing Australian Labor Party again deposed one Prime Minister and replaced her with a more popular predecessor on the eve of a Federal election, we went to see Carmen – another drama of passionate rivalry and death in the human bullring.

 

I don't want to make too much of the parallels (as they seemed that morning) between Georges Bizet's masterpiece of Spanish love, betrayal and revenge, and our own Parliamentary theatre...

...nor indeed to trespass on my self-imposed rule of not talking about partizan political issues.

 

Carmen, original poster 1875.

 

This post deals with a literary life, and readers will have their own opinions on these matters.

But.........

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June 22, 2013 @ 3:14 AM

 

Fairy Wrens

 

It being the Winter solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere, and the Canberra days brief and frosty, I spent a pleasant few minutes in cold sunshine this week watching the fairy wrens that live in our hedge going about their housekeeping in preparation for the coming spring.

Actually it isn't much of a hedge at present ... more of a stick forest, exposed to the rain and weather, and also to the gaze of passers by and any stray cat on the street side.

It had become much overgrown, and we had it quite drastically pruned – bonzai'd really – in the autumn.

 

Fairy wren, female by KeresH

 

There is a great deal for the fairy wrens to do if they're going to get the family nest.........

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June 17, 2013 @ 10:06 AM

Clothing our characters...

In Melbourne for a family visit this week, we went along to the exhibition 'Hollywood Costume' at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Federation Square.

It’s a brilliant show of over 80 iconic costumes drawn from the past century of Hollywood film-making …  from Scarlett O'Hara's green "curtain" gown from Gone with the Wind, and Dorothy's blue gingham dress and magical red shoes from The Wizard of Oz … to the washed-out cowboy clothes of Brokeback Mountain and Johnny Depp's concoction from Pirates of the Caribbean.

For anyone interested in cinema and creativity – and I guess that includes most of us – the exhibition offers a visual.........

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June 17, 2013 @ 10:02 AM

Archetypes

It’s sometimes said that, in a Jungian sense, there are perhaps only half a dozen archetypal stories in the world ... maybe even less.

Cinderella, to be sure. Saint George and the Dragon. Ulysses. King Arthur. Osiris. Romeo and Juliet, if that isn't another version of St George. Oedipus, I guess. Poirot?

And beyond that...? The universal themes tend to run a bit thin after love, war, the quest, triumph over adversity, fate, resurrection and the whodunit (which is probably a variety of the quest).

 

Ulysses offering wine to Cyclops

 

Only six or seven original story lines – and everything else are merely variations upon them, as writers and artists struggle with new ways and new symbols to re-.........

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