Cushy
Hamilton Island is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and the task of living there for free and writing a blog to promote it to the tune of an six-monthly salary of AU$150,000 has to be the best job in the world, even discounting Sol Trujillo’s now-concluded stint as CEO of Telstra. They’re down to 200 candidates and expect to announce the final 50 next week. My God, it’s just like [insert country name] Idol, except without the recording contract.

Friends & Relations
I'm prompted to write this as a result of reading a recent post by a Smith-y I know, a transfer struggling with uprooted-ness.

The company I'm working at does a survey of its employees every year to find out if they like working there, more or less, and we're doing a new one, with just 12 questions, the key to which is: do you have a best friend at work? For about the first time since I started working full-time after university, I can answer yes, even though it's probably not entirely reciprocal. So what? I regard this person as an excellent friend, and it's certainly a good thing. But all those other jobs? I liked them, too, most of them. I guess it's selfish, but the job is about me in the end, do I like what I do, am I doing more and new and learning. Now, it should be mentioned that, for the first time ever, the project I'm working on is focused on the return-on-investment, whereas most of my past jobs were start-ups, the massive expenditure stage, and often they then proceeded to stagnate horribly. So I suppose that's a factor, too.

And I suppose there's some measure of increased engagement at work because of this whole friend situation because I'm also displaced from my family, the few friends I ever had previously, and even from my country & culture, to one degree or another (hey, we get all the best crap shows from America on our t.v.'s every night), without having made any notable new friendships post-antipodean relocation. But I'm like that, always have been. A one-man dog, as it were. One at a time, anyway.

Sure, I suppose being "the American" in many situations is going to be a disadvantage, going to mark me out as opposed to distinguishing me from the pack. And while 8 years of Bush have certainly had an effect, pretty much all the other years before that weren't doing us any favors either. In World War 2, for example, when our soldiers were the first broad exposure Australians had to Americans, the boys were picking up the local women and generally getting up everybody's nose Down Under. So as much as there was gratitude for the U.S. picking up where the Brits had dropped the ball (Let Japan take Australia; we'll get it back later), there was resentment and distrust, which latter sentiments tend to linger. Out here on the periphery of the world, and generally-speaking, anywhere outside the U.S., American boosterism doesn't get very far. So there's that.

Anyway, crowds of friends or not, I'm doing what I can, and it'll all work out or it won't. Whatever happens, so far I'm happy with my choices.

Return to Redfern
The renovation of the Redfern oval is complete, or nearly, if the lack of a scoreboard or even a clock within view of the grandstand is any indication (and it may not be; I'm not privy to the specifications), and today the Mighty Rabbitohs hosted Wests Tigers in a "friendly." The grounds are very nice, even if the conditions were a little too Australian-Open to suit a rubgy match, although the services on offer were meager. Well, you go for the football, don't you, not the hot dogs and meat pies.

Anyway, they staged a "legends" match, a face-off between squads from the two teams of long-retired players, which was entertaining and played in high-spirited good nature. Unfortunately, for Souths, that was about the end of anything positive, as the Bunnies staged one of their fairly typical almost-come-from-behind defeats. Leading late in the game, they gave up two tries to see the match end in the Tigers' favor, 30-26. Even a couple of minutes extended play didn't save them.

Welcome home, boys. See you out in Homebush in a month or two, and maybe it'll get better.

It's all True
Everything you've heard about The Wrestler, all the good stuff, anyway, is absolutely true. This is a gem of a movie, leaving absolution aside just as much as it does resolution, thereby adhering to a principle of modern story-telling: no one's story is ever over until it's all over with. Mickey Rourke I never had much time for, not surprising given most of his roles and his choice to abandon acting for boxing for so long, but I cannot think of anyone better suited to this part, physically, notably, but that shouldn't be taken as a dis to his acting chops, which are splendid. Marisa Tomei hasn't had a role like this in a long time, either, and takes hold of it with real vigor. The insight into these lives is entirely worthwhile and illuminating of so much more. Somebody better get an Oscar out of this.

DVD Late Fee
How good is Taken? I can't believe I missed this in a cinema. I'd heard it was good, but skipped it, never even really considered it, and then I had to wait for the video, paying the cost of my neglect in the small-screen experience of what is an entirely enjoyable movie, on a par, nearly, with the Bourne movies. Sure, it's a divorced dad and spoiled child action-adventure movie, but from the moment Liam Neeson speaks to his about-to-be-abducted daughter, the movie plain rocks. My only quibble: what ever happened to the also-kidnapped girlfriend? I guess that was her all doped-up and roped-down, but did she get rescued? Loose ends like that niggle.

Pics
I'm working (slowly) on uploading pictures to a new web page. A link will be available once I'm done. I'll do a separate page for the Adelaide-Kangaroo Island-Melbourne trip, too.

Update: Travel pics so far; more to come.

Pictures
I was fairly snap-happy over the last week-and-a-half, but a selected few photos should do the job. Rather than editing previous posts, I'll just stick them up more-or-less chronologically for a flavor of the trip.


A lookout vantage over the Barossa Valley, where our wine tour took us, outside Adelaide, which we shared with a woman from Vancouver, making for a most enjoyable day, particularly since she knew all the right questions to ask at each stop.


Greetings from Kangaroo Island.


Well-trained kookaburras. We had one on Mom's hand at one point, but I think she deleted the picture.


The penguins come ashore at night after days at sea, eating, and for their shore leave, molt. Because their eyes are adapted for underwater vision, white light bothers them, so the guides use red filters to show them up outside their burrows. Not even knee-high.


The Remarkable Rocks, as they're prosaically known, are a jumble of sea-and-air shaped free-standing boulders, very "Picnic at Hanging Rock" in effect as you wander among them.


For the tennis, we walked each morning along the Yarra to the show courts, along with many others from all points of the city. Later, we found out there was a special tram.


Alize Cornet lost last night, unfortunately, but we did get to see her in her round 2 match. She did pretty well, though.


We also got to see the Williams sisters in a doubles match, although we had to sit through a preceding match, after standing outside show court 2 for an hour, while a Serb and a Croatian fought out five sets, a match featuring some bad behavior by their supporters, a few ejections, and, when the Croatian won, loud singing and fascist salutes. What's with these creeps? They should be banned for life. From everywhere. Not the Williams, the Croatians-Serbs-Bosnians.


(Who are these people?)


I never got the story about the giant gold bees all over this building. There's a really big one up the top, too, and a bit of a swarm along one wall. Next time I'll ask.


I know what the latin says, but I reckon Melbourne's trying to tell us they built their success on wool, whales, beef and boats. I like the kangaroo rampant.


Our trip along the Great Ocean Road was very nice, and the driver even stopped when we spotted a koala along the way. The trees in the vicinity are badly denuded by mistletoe and hungry koalas.


This formation used to be connected to the land, but not anymore, not since 1990, when a collapse left two or three people stranded. These formations are largely limestone and sandstone, all being eroded. A rise in sea levels would cause further and dramatic alterations along this coast.


On our last day + 1, Mom & I visited the State Library, to see Ned Kelly's armor, among other things. The reading room was designed based on the famous reading room in London's library, and that of the Library of Congress. Australia did a lot of that sort of thing, combining the best features of the U.S. and the U.K. to achieve something new and remarkable in the world. It often works.

Pinky & Blinky's Big Adventure
So this couple I was traveling with woke up on Saturday with a whole day of nothing scheduled in Melbourne, a day to explore, visit the bookshops and museums, etc., but as we gathered to plan our afternoon, we found ourselves confronted periodically by members of the hotel staff, who seemed somewhat anxious and confused. We laughed about it a little, until I piped up to joke about how maybe we were supposed to have left already, including catching a midday international flight, now long departed. Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a joke. Over the course of our holiday, having not had much time spent at leisure to indulge in obsessive itinerary re-checking (and acting in ignorance on my part, or at least from the dates supplied), nobody thought to question Saturday or Sunday, 24th or 25th?

We managed to get the jet set rebooked for the next day, but still had to organize a place to stay, the hotel we were at being most thoroughly booked. The Langham, a very swank joint, were very helpful, and we ended up in the nouveau-deco Intercontinental Rialto, over in the city center. The hotel had only in the last few months reopened after a multi-million dollar renovation. It was o.k. Way overpriced, especially since one of the rooms was being heated instead of cooled. Luckily, that was the other room from the one I stayed it.

We shuttled out to the airport the next morning, very early, and once passport control opened, off went our intrepid explorers, leaving me to wend my way to the domestic terminal for a quick jaunt back to Sydney, from which I happily write this update, albeit anxiously awaiting news of what will have transpired in Los Angeles. Tune in (or post a comment, M&P) to discover: overnight stay or connecting flight and long drive home in the winter dark of North Carolina?

Day Three at the Open
29 degrees today, much more endurable, even if, after a set of Safin, we spent an hour or more waiting to get into Arena 2, where we would sit through two sets of women's singles just to catch the Williams sisters in a doubles match against a pair of Russians. Serena & Venus were dominant, if not dominating, but you can easily see how well they work together. It's a long day in the sun, though, and by the end of the day, there are so many layers of sunblock, you can't help feeling pretty grubby.

As I've mentioned, we're in Southbank, which is across the river from central Melbourne, but whether we head into town or stay on "our side", the city makes effective use of its riverfront. We'll see what else it's like, a little, tomorrow, travelling the circuit on the tram, but I'm already very intrigued at the idea of living and working here: what would it be like? How possible is it? I think, so far, Sydney's inner-west suburbs work better for me than trying anything similar here, but I do like this city.

Oh, Noes! Is He Still President?
Chief Justice Roberts fed the new guy his line wrong, so Obama swore in under a "revised" oath: does this mean that crypto-Muslim, non-citizen Barak Obama isn't really President anymore? ZOMG!

I fully expect there to be some of this kind of stuff around the internets today.

In the real world, however, much jubilation is evidenced. Congratulations, Mr. President; please fix the world.

Open-ing Note
I've got to come back and add links and pictures all through these posts, but we've been in Melbourne one-and-a-half days now, including what amounts to a full day at the Australian Open. Yesterday we got in around noon, unpacked, had lunch, and marched around a little. The plane did Dad's back in pretty well, so we cut it short and basically just chilled with the t.v. coverage of Day One of the tennis until dinner. I arranged a meal at the French Brassarie, which is one of the city's famously tucked-away restaurants, and which lived up to its hype in the in-flight magazine review that led me to it - all that internet research, and Qantas found my dinner; well, it all worked out.

Today, thinking it would be good to scout the venue and the offerings, we headed out pretty much in time for the gates to open, along with many hundreds of others, it seems, at least by the time we got to the tennis. Our journey along the Yarra river was peaceful, but presaged a hot day. And that it was. I have never in my life sweated so much sitting still as I did today, other than sitting in a sauna. It wasn't terribly humid, but it was hot, and no amount of sunscreen could in any way help endure that, other than insofar as we didn't leave roasted red as a cooked lobster.

Dad had a couple of particular matches in mind, so we trooped along with him to watch a seeded Frenchman desultorially beat an unseeded Argentenian, who at least gave a good account of himself, winning the first set, doing o.k. in the second, but, despite his opponents' struggles in the third, giving it up in the end.

The second match, pitting an American-born Swiss player against a French woman, was not well attended, the previous crowd having left their favourite behind. The wind picked up, and it was clear the Swiss was struggling with her serve and her shots as a result. After the third let, we took off to allow Mom to conduct her mandatory souvenier shopping.

The plan tomorrow is to head in later, which is both a good and a bad idea, I reckon, as we'll miss any chance at morning shadows, but at least have an afternoon cool, if the temperatures rise. It was easily well over 30 degrees today - 90 for the post-equator crowd, but is forecast only into the high 20's/80's for tomorrow.

At least we've discovered some inexpensive dining options nearby, including an "Irish" pub (which at least has the most extensive whiskey offerings of any bar I've been to in this country).

So Far
South Australia isn't but an hour's flight from Sydney, or thereabouts, but Adelaide is a distinctly different city. We didn't have all that much time actually in town, committing our only full day off to a winery tour of the Barossa. This was very nice, as it was just four of us - Mom, Dad, me, and a very nice woman from Vancouver, who, it turned out was also a sommelier for a restaurant there, which sources some notable portion of its wine list from a vineyard on the list. I ended up buying a bottle of wine on her recommendation (and my own palate), and it was swell. We all ended the day dining in an Argentine restaurant - a little over-priced, but decent, and finishing the bottle. I also bought some port to bring home and cellar for the next ten years, at which point it's expected to be magnificant. It was pretty good already.

Kangaroo Island was interesting, especially day three, which I'll get to shortly. Day one was spent on the bus tearing around hither and yon, stopping to sample products of one kind or another: eucalyptus oil, sheep's cheese; or else looking this and that landscape, all quite pretty and picturesque; or visiting sad animal shelters. The raptors exhibition, however, was terrific, although we've got to find a camera shop to see if we can restore the shot of Mom holding the kookaburra, which photo got accidentally deleted.

Day two was a day off, which was nice, spent lounging by the pool reading, although we did go out at sunset to catch the kangaroos and wallabies at their work: eating, hoping, crossing the road suddenly. The highlight of the evening was the "Little Penguins" (formerly known as "Fairy Penguins", an appellation which has gone in favor of political correctness). Cute, but immensely noisy. Apparently, they'll cross the road and set up burrows under people's houses when they're all at home at once, setting up quite a hue and cry all night until they're ready to go swimming again, at 4:30 a.m.

On the third day, we had a bus tour again, before catching an early evening plane back to Adelaide for the night. This tour went out to the western end of the island into the national park. You may have heard that December '07 included some horrific bush fires, which consumed about 20% of the island's vegetation. Well, the evidence was everywhere, although so, too, was the regeneration. Still, it was clearly devastating and extensive. "Remarkable Rocks" and the Admiral's Arch are magnificant natural stone structures. Sea lions are, apparently, dogs de-evolved back into sea creatures, and they sound and smell like it. (We'd seen a colony of Australian sea lions on day one; the second set were New Zealand sea lions. It was quite enjoyable to see them gamboling in the surf, especially the young, who seemed to be learning their ocean-going skills in relative safety, since there'd be no White Pointers up by the rocks.)

Another early morning flight, and now we'll do an afternoon of Melbourne, with dinner booked nearby. Tomorrow and Wednesday - Monday & Tuesday for the podeans - will be spent at the Open, although I have to see if DAA are doing anything locally for the inauguration, which will be broadcast, but I'd rather catch a party, if there is one.

Pictures anon.

Travel Travails
Off to Adelaide tomorrow, where temperatures are in excess of 105 Fahrenheit.

Thence to Melbourne, for the tennis, and where temps are comparable. I hope there's a pool.

Collector's Item?
No way: every geek and half of all Obama supporters under 65 are going to go out and buy a copy of Obama Meets Spiderman, I reckon. And it'll be cheesey. Any hints what Spidey villian will be trying to stop the inaugeration? Doc Ock? The Lizard? Yeah, that's it, the Lizard.

Price Strike
When I was a kid, I walked a picket line. It was the Long Island Meat Strike, a period during which the supermarkets were jacking up prices on meat and housewives across Long Island were galvanized to find out just what was going on and to achieve some measure of fairness. It achieved some measure of national stature, including a Congressional hearing, and one incident in which a farmer shipped a calf to the leader of the strike, saying, here, you raise it, see how much it costs and how much you get back when it's steaks. The leader of the strike adopted the little doggie (as a motherless calf is known), until re-homing it to an upstate farm, where it could live out its life. (It probably did end up as food, I suppose.)

Anyway, one of the significant outcomes of the strike was to require that all supermarkets provide unit pricing. This is a scheme whereby every consumer good on the shelf had a label expressing its purchase price, but also a shelf tag that provided comparative value, i.e., price per ounce. This allowed the shoppers to calculate relative value. This jar of mustard was 8.33 and this was 9.85, but the first was 10 ounces and the second 12.5. While it would be easy enough to calculate the differential, this was in the days before hand-held calculators, so many people were left with making their decision simply on which price was lower, even when that meant they ultimately paid more for an equivalent product.

The Australian Retailers Association to claim that mandatory unit pricing won't bring down prices is simply - no, scratch that - it's deliberately disingenuous. They are lying to you. It won't achieve an immediate effect on prices - or any, it's true - unless we consumers use unit pricing to our own advantage. Look at the unit pricing and buy the less expensive but comparable option. If there are two organic olive oils on the shelf and one gives you a unit price-based advantage, buy that one. Same same for everything else. Compare and save, as so many discount shops advise. Back in NYC, Sym's, the discount clothing retailer, advises: an educated consumer is our best customer; same principle applies.

Yes, let's get this done, Australia - nearly forty years after we achieved the same victory in New York, and ultimately across the nation, thanks to a decent Congress at the time. We need it, and we deserve it.

Meat Strike! Meat Strike! Meat Strike!
Union! Union! Union!

Swears and Curses
It's not exactly comforting to see that the more things change, the worse they get in American politics, or the Senate, at least. This is a poor example to set of the kind of behavior the new President can expect from the legislature. This is not "the change we need."

Urban Renewal
My inner-west suburb appears due for literally big changes. While I’m not likely to be directly affected for some time, the prospect of increased population density along the Parramatta Road corridor isn’t terribly appealing, at least not when it’s meant to increase the demand and thereby provide the impetus for improved mass-transit. As with so many new developments in the outer-west, the support seems to wait for the need. What this will mean is more traffic, more crowding on the busses, and more people packing into an already limited set of grocery, shopping and entertainment centers and precincts. More stress all around, as such increases are likely to require more call-outs to cops and firemen and EMT’s, et al.

When I was living in Surry Hills, part of Sydney’s south, but pretty much contiguous with the CDB’s borders, essentially, the Council conducted a survey to address zoning changes. The area was a thorough mix of building types, with many warehouse-conversions and commercial buildings scattered throughout the otherwise mostly terrace houses and low-rise blocks. What was proposed, and, I expect, enacted, albeit after I relocated, would allow considerable change, so that low-rise blocks, houses, and open areas abutting high-rises (anything more than three stories, essentially) would be permitted to be (re)developed proportionately to their neighbors. Living in a seven-story warehouse-conversion (on the 1st floor, the one above Ground level), we were next door to a four-story block with a large courtyard area. That four-story block, including the undeveloped courtyard, was to be permitted to climb another three stories, which would have had the effect of blocking the morning sun (the good sun, that is, afternoon sun being so very much longer and hotter) for many units, whose owners, no doubt, had based at least some part of their selection on light and view.

Looking at the neighborhood dispassionately, however, the plan made sense. Nobody was jumping in on the development options right away, tearing anything down or building anything up. It would bring a measure of coherence to a largely chaotic jumble of building styles and would likely also gentrify an area that suffered from its fringe status. There were at least three homeless shelters within a block or two of our unit, as well as numerous backpacker hostels, but little in the way of services. All that would probably improve.

But that close to the CBD, we had good bus service to pretty much anywhere in Sydney, Central Station a five-minute walk away, and good shopping and entertainment options. That’s not quite so true for the inner-west, as much a development jumble as anywhere else among the older suburbs. For example, the development of the Broadway shops, sitting between the CDB and Glebe, was the death knell for movie theatres, supermarkets, and many other shops from Newtown to Strathfield. Yes, a few IGA’s and shops survived, but many didn’t, or they had to alter their offerings to refine their specialisation. And it’s not as if big-box shopping centres don’t suffer attrition in what they offer. Even Broadway recently lost even it’s HMV, most likely as a result of increased internal competition, with the addition of Target to a complex already including Kmart, both of whom sell popular CD’s and DVD’s

Yes, stacking some thousands of new homes in among the existing is going to increase demand, but nothing’s going to serve that demand until it’s present. Parramatta Road is a desolate strip of car dealerships and failed enterprises. There’s hardly even a fast-food chain all the way out to the Olympic Park. The furniture store that burned down a few years ago remains burned-down. More people probably come in from the outer-west, only as far as Parramatta, than come out from the inner-west, but they’ve got highways, for one thing, allowing Parramatta to serve as an alternative city-centre, much as Chatswood does for the northern suburbs.

I’m all for development, but it needs planning, it needs to be done along with the integration of services to support it, and that’s not easy to achieve. This plan seems a little too free-market for me.

Gone with the Long-Winded
Baz Luhrmann's epic, Australia, is, as everyone has said, the Australian "Gone with the Wind," with the WWII bombing of Darwin by the Japanese standing in for the American Civil War. It's got it all: love-match misunderstandings, race relations, scenic backdrops in place of on-location shoots, set-piece chapter breaks - plus digital effects George Lucas would be ashamed of. Oh, o.k., the story's not bad, and for a tear-jerker, it's effective enough, but Nicole Kidman, for all that she makes a go of it, struggles throughout, and Hugh Jackman basically alternates between trying to be an Aussie Rhett Butler and otherwise Snowy-Rivering his way through all the other scenes he's in. The Aboriginal kid is good, but doesn't get to do much, and everybody is pretty much left to caricature instead of character. Jack Thompson gets killed off so fast there's pretty much no need for him to even have been in the movie. David Wenham, an actor I've really enjoyed in many other roles, is given little more to do than sneer through his nose in sound bites, more like John Lovitz's pathological liar than anything else ("Yeah, that's the ticket, yeah"). It's pretty, it's loud, it's got a story, but it has no substance. The narration is repetitive, and so's the plot, finally.

One of the standard tropes is that at 165 minutes (plus twenty minutes or more of advertisements and trailers), the movie's about an hour too long. I reckon I'd really only ask for about twenty minutes of my life back, discounting the ads, which I'd get even for a 90-minute flick, and basically just because that's about how much time in total is spent lingeringly on cliches.

Oh, and the songs over the closing credits are terrible. Really, get out while you can.

Packaging
Public Image, Ltd., has re-released "Metal Box" in a CD analogue to the original packaging. I know I only bought it because I fell for the marketing gimmick, but it's a terrific record anyway, and now I'll have those "poptones" turning up on my iPod.

Conveniences
There were a number of considerations I had to make when I took this job in North Ryde, some of which included the fact that in Parramatta I had convenient lunch-hour access to doctors and dentists, whereas the desolation of a big-box industrial park offered limited prospects even for so much as a cup of coffee (it being a cultural practice here to provide instant coffee in the workplace in preference to what is considered horrible American drip machines; many people prefer to bring a small French press, but then I'm just bringing home clean-up chores along to the office, and I've got enough to do). Other factors include: home deliveries (Australia Post does not open on Saturday and only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, severely limiting my ability to attend the local branch) and household repairs.

A month or so ago, my oven stopped working.

A month or so ago, my Parramatta dentist called to remind me of my six-monthly appointment, prompting me to find a local dentist, who, delightfully, doesn't work Saturdays, but 8:30 to 5:00 on weekdays.

A month or so ago, I bought tickets to a big event that the Sydney Festival organisers thought best to send to my home address via registered mail without offering me a different mailing address option.

I booked the dentist and a day off. Probably I could have done a half-day, but let's make a long weekend out of it, I thought.

As long as I've got an early dental appointment, I thought, let's book an electrician for the same day.

And on the Wednesday preceding, the registered mail pick-up slip arrived in my mailbox. It all worked beautifully, serendipitously. Hooray for me.

The dentist, despite accepting my insurance, charges $60 above the "reasonable and standard" rate established by my private cover. (And let's not even get into the whole water-boarding experience it proved to be; don't tell me that's not torture.)

Yesterday the dishwasher broke.

If these things go in threes, there'll be a problem with the tickets, I reckon (although it could be that the NY'er's international distribution company has decided to reallocate my subscription to somebody else), but that'd be the least thing to go wrong.

Genre Nostalgia
It's funny that I never got into The X-Files, but I didn't, and watching the movies confirmed it. I rented both yesterday and watched them back-to-back. I guess I already knew that that wasn't going to offer much continuity, but it seemed the best way to address the second, to provide context. Now, this was a show that essentially pioneered the techniques used in Heroes, Lost, etc., that sense of dislocation as the different plot lines within and between episodes swirled around, touching, almost but not quite converging, and it was all going to be the aliens all along, of the secret world government, or maybe just some mad scientists operating all on their own, so even if you weren't going to get a straight answer, it'd be a fun ride. It just wasn't. Largely, David Duchovney goes around blank-faced, beaten up, and carrying on through, like the good hard-boiled detective he's modeled on, but without the force of personality to make you care, and Gillian Anderson wanders through every scene she's in looking like a startled squirrel, which is the full range of her acting ability from what I've seen elsewhere. So even when you get any kind of plot, there's not a lot of it - which may be a movie-length translation problem - leaving the majority of what's on screen mere atmosphere.

As we're now in the summer television doldrums (not that we aren't usually, there being nothing much to watch on free-to-air to begin with - and even if I had digital, the broadcast options don't vary), I've been reading a little more after dinner than usual (and just to keep adding parentheticals, since most of what I watch are the hot shows out of the U.S. and these are usually played at or through past what time I go to bed, I usually knock over at least the NY'er in short order), which has led me to the Smiley series of John LeCarre's spy novels. I remember when these were the hottest spy novels going, and the third of them was made into a BBC show with Alec Guinness, but the novels aren't holding up particularly well. Is it post-Cold War malaise? Is it just that they're too British, too English, really? Is it just the narrative voice, one that seems to go off into an aren't we clever tone, speaking suddenly quite directly to the reader as if regaling its audience with an amusing story? Big, overwritten, these books are nothing like LeCarre's recent stuff, books where he's found an anger not expressed in these. Maybe that's the key, finding the anger, because there must be some, repressed, stiff-upper-lipped into a gruelling slog through minutia.

Perhaps instead of renting a movie tonight, I'll focus on finding Smiley's edge.

Rate Cuts
It’s a dilemma: when the Reserve Bank cuts interest rates, commercial banks can pass that along in part or in full to their customers, but when they do, reducing mortgage repayments, for example, and everybody cheers, they also cut the return on savings or new term deposits, which everybody seems to forget. Granted, these are not the preferred investment instruments these past few years, and if you’re holding a mortgage, your savings may not be doing you much good (better if you pay the maximum extra and then bank what’s left), but mortgage rates simply aren’t all that high at the moment and while the global economy is bad everywhere, we’re not at much at risk of massive foreclosure exposure as others are. Banks, like any other company, need profits. They shouldn’t need the kind of profits that have provided CEO’s around the world with income in excess of 60x that of their lowest-paid employees, but enough to stay open and keep handing out compound interest and offering loans. I say all this in the first year of a five-year fixed-rate mortgage, so if I’m honest, I suppose if I had a variable rate I’d want the full cut just as much as I’d hate every interest rate rise passed on in full. Fair enough, if they run the rates up equal to or in excess of the Reserve Bank’s increases – and they did – they need to at least pass on the savings, too.

Yes, It Has [Arrived]
Oh, there's my Obama shirt. Funny colors.

Thanksgiving
American history isn't a big thing here, so I found myself on Saturday having to explain a little about the Pilgrims and their Indian enablers, but all-in-all we had fun. I didn't do much cooking, and certainly no roasts. Even though rain blew through a couple of times, we had lovely weather out in the garden. I guess a BBQ might have been o.k., but I haven't done much towards that. It's a small, communal space, after all, so maybe that's for the best anyway. I did make a nice cucumber salad, with crushed peanuts, dried chilies, turmeric, cumin and mustard seed, parsley, mint, and dressed with lemon. Quite nice, too, as all the flavors were present, distinct, yet melding nicely. It's always nice to see the Spielman's, even if it wasn't the full contingent. The Munoz's turned up late, but I was very pleased to see them. Married two years now, and this is the first time we've gotten together since the wedding. Very bad.

Xmen, I mean Xmas
The office party's been announced, and it's got a theme: Hawaiian nights. Terrific. No thongs (flip-flops, for the Americans) or singlets (wife-beaters for the rednecks), but wouldn't you know it? Mambo loud-shirts are eBay-only at this point. A couple of years ago, they decided that Reg Mombassa's designs were too old-hat for the kiddies. The surf-set wasn't buying their gear because it was the same stuff their middle-aged uncool old dad was wearing. Little did I know, and little does the Counsellor know, but that beer tree shirt I got him 'way back in 2000 is now a serious collector's item, worth well in excess of what I paid and climbing steadily. Even eBay doesn't have any of that particular design left, which leaves me with the stubby-chips-and-fags design (if it arrives in time) or my 3-eyed-Jesus-at-the-footy (the miracle of the pies, or somthing) t-shirt. Gotta do it, though. Maybe I should go for the Ned Kelly & John the Baptist one?

(And where's my Obama shirt?)

Who’s Squealing?
In one of the most petty instances of political gamesmanship, we now have the Federal Opposition carping about the Prime Minister’s recent phone call to George Bush over who let slip that George didn’t know what the G20 is? Rudd has denied W. even asked, but because Murdoch’s Australian reported it, Turnbull and crew are treating it as true and a leak, deliberately embarrassing Bush and showing up Rudd as a political fumbler. We’ve got Tony Abbott calling Rudd “cowardly”, even, for refusing to continue to engage the Opposition on the matter.

Frankly, I find Australian parliamentary politics childish in its daily performances. While I wouldn’t put it past Bush not to know about the G20 – a man of such deliberate ignorance, he’s been shown up on a regular basis – and likewise I wouldn’t be surprised if Rudd himself was the source of the “leak”. Here he is having dinner with the editor of the Australian, the call comes in, and, afterward, Kev says: “Jeez, that W., said ‘Who’s that?’ when I asked him about meeting with the G20.” So off goes the intrepid journalist to get a nice piece in for the morning. It’s not a scenario I can’t see happening. But so what? “National Security breach”? I think that needs more explanation than who did or didn’t say what to whom. Can we please move on?

Bali Bombers
I understand the execution of the Bali Bombers, as these men are collectively known, and the reactions to their crimes, trial, sentence, and deaths. It’s Indonesia’s right to manage its judicial system and to impose capital punishment, but I take no satisfaction in these executions, even while I can sympathize with those, due to their own involvement or that of their families, as victims, who do. But capital punishment is less satisfying to me than would be the conversion of these men from fanatics into having an understanding of what their actions really did, both in the direct harm to the people killed and injured and their families, Australian and Balinese, and to those who see their deaths are martyrdom, who are themselves radicalized, a more lasting damage. I’m glad they’re gone, but I pity us all, knowing that there are still those who think a car bomb, a suicide bomb, a gun, a grenade, a war are ever really legitimate options for redress.

Proud, but Underdressed
I have never been so moved by a Presidential acceptance speech as I was today, standing in a room with hundreds of my fellow Sydneysider expat Americans, and nearly as many again Australian supporters, listening to Barak Obama promise to be President for all of the country, even the ones whose trust he had not yet earned, and even while I knew there were so very many who would simply refuse to ever support him. For the African-American Vietnam vet who left the U.S. after his discharge and stood beside me in tears, for the gays & straights of Democrats Abroad Australia, for every Aussie whose regard for America was dashed to pieces in 2000 and again in 2004, this election was momentous, and we all know now not only that we must work harder than ever, but that it can have an effect. We can change the world for the better, because we can change ourselves, we have changed ourselves.

But where's my Obama shirt?

Undecided
Down to the wire, and there are still people making up their minds. I know McCain isn’t Bush – it’s the best line he had in any of the debates – but I don’t believe he’s actually got a plan for being president, other than to be president. Obama, on the other hand, I think has a plan, even if it may be pretty high-level, and I’m sure he’s got the thinkers to pull it all together into the detailed agenda a president needs. What Obama has that McCain lacks, to pick one, is leadership. No, he’s not a secret Muslim, planted by the A-rabs to trap Amurica into becoming an Islamic theocracy. No, he’s not a socialist terrorist redistributionist, and I can’t believe that anyone is still making those accusations as if they’re arguments. McCain’s got nothing but anger fueling his campaign, that and wing-nut Palin hysteria. And I reckon he’s done serious damage to the future of the country by picking Palin as his running mate; certainly, he’s damaged the GOP, dealing a body-blow it’ll be reeling from for the next eight years. Well, good. They gave us Bush – two of ‘em, and one of ‘em twice. But what a shame that Palin’s been plucked from the obscurity of Alaska, where the damage she might have wrought could be curtailed. The idea of seeing her again in four-to-eight years curdles my blood. Unfortunately, Obama’s choice of Biden really only gets us eight years, instead of twelve, as Joe’ll be a little long in the tooth to take advantage of incumbency in 2016. He was a good pick, for the stability he provides, for the reassurance his experience provides, something not on offer from the Republicans, but he’ll only ever be VP, now.

Wednesday, I’ll be out at Slide Lounge, Oxford Street, Darlinghurst for the Democrats Abroad election watch party. Four years ago, the party turned into a wake, but I think this year I’ll need to have taken Thursday off, too.

Outdoor Art
M. & I made the annual Bondi pilgrimage to “Sculpture by the Sea” over the weekend, although I’d say mainly on the basis that her cousin’s husband, Mark McClelland, had a piece in the show. In fact, it won the big NAB prize, something the Sydney Morning Herald was a little dismissive of, attributing the accomplishment somewhat to its position. This is more than a little unfair, since it wouldn’t have been the artist choosing the location, but the curators, in which instance they did a swell job. It’s also worth taking into account that a substantial number of the installations – and many of them amount to that more than to a more specific categorization as “sculpture” – aren’t particularly site-specific. The Andy Warhol wire mesh bust, for example, has no real place in an outdoor show, let alone one that ranges over two kilometres of dramatic shoreline. Mark’s piece suited its position, much more so than some of the others. In itself it was an accomplished work, quite a surprise, really, as we had no idea he’d taken it up.

There were other pieces in the show that I liked quite a lot as well and some – many, really – that were just “Sculpture-by-the-Sea” sculptures. A Christo-ish wrapping of a massive boulder was derivative, perhaps, but nonetheless effective for the change it wrought over how you looked at something you’ve seen so many times. The Perspex sphere floating offshore (for sale! Put it in your pool!) drew and held the gaze, bobbing in the swells. The dogs ranged in stopped motion up a hill were evocative of wildness, the sort of shock that runs through you when unexpectedly encountering animals in their natural habitat and state. The iron sea urchins were quite good, too.

The Next War President
Remember when W. called himself a “war President”? If you had any doubts about the belligerence of John McCain, you might see them cast aside with his latest remarks. He’s ready to pull the trigger, folks. He’s always been ready. Not like that namby-pamby Obama, all willing to talk and stuff.

John McCain will take this country into another war if he becomes President. That's not to say Obama won't, but with McCain, it's a guarantee. You read it here first.

Politics, as usual
I’m sure the canteen in Canberra is as much a fine-dining experience as anywhere else, just as much as I’m sure I’d take my wife to lunch somewhere outside the office, but in a period when governmental concerns over increasing levels of obesity are making headlines week-by-week, who orders the Stroganoff, anyway, let alones worries that the portions are too small. (Reminds of me of that joke about Army food/old-age home meals/etc.: The food’s so bad here, complains one. And the portions are so small, responds the other.) Does it come with a salad? A bread roll? Maybe you’d like a wafer-thin mint after your meal?

Call a Royal Commission!

Biopic
Patti Smith’s first album, “Horses”, was one of the few from that period that I instantly “got” when I first heard it, and I’ve been a thorough fan ever since. Somehow, in her later career, she kind of fell off the radar for me, maybe because she wasn’t touring, focussed instead on her life as a mom in Detroit. Her return, marked initially by a pointed anarchist anthem, “People Have the Power,” was welcome, if disappointing, but when I caught up with “Gone”, well, she really was back, a better songwriter and poet than ever before. So when Dream of Life was announced for previews at the Dendy, M. booked the tickets and we made the pilgrimage yesterday. I use “pilgrimage” quite deliberately, not because it’s some kind of trek down to Circular Quay, but because of the film itself, which at 109 minutes, is too long by half, due entirely to the long, long meditations of Patti attending the graves of Gregory Corso, Arthur Rimbaud, and her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith, among other visitations. The movie has many appealing moments with Patti herself and the people in her life, including her band, but without much exposition beyond a quick recap of her life, and some old footage of her from when she first moved to NYC, an appealing gamin. One of the critiques of the film I’ve seen elsewhere is that nobody is identified, except contextually, and I did find that to be a problem. If I didn’t know her band, the introductions come rather late in the piece. Sam Shepard I knew, but which one was Tom Verlaine? Or Flea, for that matter? Was that her boyfriend with the Prada bag? Does he have a name?

I enjoyed it, mainly for the music, for those moments when Patti’s life was opened up a little for us, but I can’t say this was a stand-out documentary as such.

Sub-prime Reasoning
I'm not great economic genius, but every day I read or hear someone say the economic crisis we're afflicted with at the moment is the fault of people taking out mortgages they couldn't afford. This is specious.

The majority of mortgages in all the history of mortgages are unaffordable, and the borrowers do everything they can to make ends meet. I don't blame anyone for wanting a home of their own, even if their reasoning, their calculations, have been flawed. Nobody much was out there explaining the positive balance to be achieved by renting over buying, certainly not to the extent that so many of these people would have had the access to the information or wouldn't still have had that other voice, the bad angel, if you will, whispering just the opposite, something we're all susceptible to, even if it's more a matter of having that extra piece of chocolate cake or not.

And I still don't blame the mortgagees, and certainly not to the tune of trillions of dollars. Sorry, that's where I have to get off this train-wreck of an argument. There are just under 300 million people in the U.S. How many of them would have to take out a mortgage-they-can't-afford to run up the debt into the trillions? Even leaving aside the fact that there aren't 300 million people eligible for a mortgage, even as subprime holders - because many already own, are smart enough to do the math, are children, own in tandem with someone else - you'd need many more than you can comfortably blame for the problem, I'd reckon, but, like I said, I'm no math genius, even if you do give me a calculator.

Not to mention it's money on paper, for one thing, which brings me to where the fault really lies: corporate greed.

It's been a long-standing problem for corporations, private and well as, although especially, publicly-traded, that their focus is not on their existence, but on providing "shareholder return." This can only be accomplished by maximizing profit. Fair enough, that corporations should be in the business of making money, but that's not quite the same as "shareholder return," something that's more about accounting tricks than actual revenue versus cost. There's only so much any company can do to maximize profit, you know. There's a minimum number of employees, after which the company can't fulfill it's commitments to its customers. There are overheads, costs paid to government, suppliers, etc. It takes money, we always hear, to make money, and it's true. But shareholder return doesn't care about that. Show a downturn, show a slow-down, and shareholder return shrinks, the market gets itchy, shareholder return shrinks more, and so on, until you're out of business and shareholder return is zero, anyway, or worse, as we're seeing today.

So Joe Plumber, to take Senator McCain's new icon, loses that home he couldn't afford the mortgage on, even if he was making his payments, because his bank sold his subprime mortgage to someone else who sold futures on it to some other cabal who leveraged whatever that was worth in some other obscene transaction, until somebody had to have some cash and it had to come from Joe Plumber or Joe Sixpack or me or you.

This isn't new, it's just snowballed. We've been headed this way for a few decades now, although things really started getting out of hand in the eighties, when the GOP decided it ought not to be too concerned with how people got along and focussed instead on ensuring they got along so long as they were incorporated. The Democrats haven't helped, frankly, and as much as I hear from back home that Obama is no less in bed with the usual corporate suspects and beholden to the lobbyists, I have to agree. My only hope is that he really will prove to be a leader. I know McCain won't. He's too old and too beholden and too bought-and-sold-out. In some ways, I wonder about Hillary Clinton, but, then again, what did Bill do? I mean other than to set in motion a lot of the regulatory changes that are killing us now.

AU$ down to US$0.65, in a decline as precipitous as it's gain, and during a period where the expectation from the analysts was that we'd be at par. Goes to show: you can't trust the experts. Makes me feel a little better about my own thinking on the topic.

The Uses of Power
Of course Sarah Palin abused her power as governor of Alaska, that's what power is for, and that's what she wanted it for. Her entire history is about power and its (ab)uses. She didn't like property taxes, so when she had her chance, she got rid of them in Wasalia. It didn't matter that she replaced a progressive tax with a regressive one. She got what she wanted. And when the GOP power brokers needed someone they could put forward who wasn't implicated in any of their major corruption problems, she was a logical choice, someone who'd do what they wanted, but not so smart as to start running them. Of course, she was also not so smart as not to end up in a scandal of her own, but ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances, as the saying goes. And this is the kind of person John McCain thinks is Presidential material, the legacy he'd leave us with, once his own two terms (assuming he can take a second, let alone the first one, and assuming his health holds out) expire? Sure, why not? George H.W. would have left us with Dan Quayle if he could have, after all. The GOP is beyond cynical. They believe power is a right, their right. And look what they've done with it. Since Nixon, look at what they've done. (Skip Ford, he was pretty much a nonentity.) Reagan's "trickle-down" bankruptcy of D.C., Bush I's . . . o.k., skip him, too; all he left us with was his son. Bush II, who's Reagan lite, if only from a intellectual standpoint, which is saying something in itself, even while he tries to out-Reagan Reagan. And now McCain, the most cynical of them all. And his legacy? Unending war and Sarah Palin appointing Supreme Court Justices. I've never been happier to be an ex-pat. What my first country could come to with this crowd in power for just four more years, let alone eight, or twelve, or sixteen . . . it's beyond belief.

The Election the Democrats Have to Win (But Do They Want to?)
In the run-up to the last Australian Federal election, and, in fact, well before, there was a fair amount of talk from both sides that Labor might be better off losing, so that the Liberals would take the heat on the economy. With stocks collapsing, rates going up, coming back down, and the AU$ in free-fall, we may well be looking at joining the U.S. in a recession, which is bound to hurt Labor at the next election, maybe even cost them their narrow majority.

If the U.S. doesn't pull out of its own tailspin soon, maybe the Democrats would themselves be better off not taking the White House, and it could cost some House seats. The problem with that is, whatever you think of Obama, he's better for the U.S. and the world in the medium- to long-term than McCain, who'll only give us the same as we've been getting from Bush, except worse, because it'll be for that much longer.

Meanwhile, because I moved, and my forwarding notice has long since expired, I've had to cast a write-in ballot. I'm confident I've voted for the right man and in time, but I dislike the uncertainty of this method.

Gig Guide
It ran pretty late for a school night, but M. & Astrid & I hit the Annandale Hotel for The New Pornographers - how could we not? We came to them relatively late, but so what? The show was just "wow" all the way through. Hearing them live offered an opportunity to fully appreciate just how much precision these musicians bring with them. It's a tight, tight band, playing dense music, with unusual virtuosity. No sign of Neko Case, which was kinda too bad, but I'd almost rather just savor that experience separately anyway. The ELO cover ("Don't Bring Me Down") to close the set was inspired.

Limits of Power
So Bloomberg wants a third term as Mayor? I guess I can’t blame him, or fault him too much for trying to overturn term limits. I always thought term limits were stupid, but the legislature enacted them, and I think they ought to live with them, and that includes Mayor Mike. After all, he ran for the office knowing he could only have two terms, so it gets a bit “president-for-life” to wait until the end of your second term to reconstitute the constitution. Suck it up, Mikey, you’re through.

Bailout
All this stock market volatility is distressing, at least insofar as my 401(k) is concerned, which is probably down to practically nothing by now, and, because I no longer contribute to it, unable to take advantage of diminished prices for the inevitable return to growth. So much for retirement. Speaking of which, Mom & Dad – and millions like them – are disproportionately affected by this crisis, since they were smart enough to invest for their post-working lives, but now are unfortunate enough to rely on stocks and so forth to fund daily living. Will the Bush plan help them?

There’s a reason I used the phrase “disproportionately affected” before. While banks and brokerages and insurance companies are in turmoil, and the Chapter 11 filings and mergers and takeovers will result in many employees at many levels being turned out on the street to fend for themselves, adding financial stress to the system already burdened by too many people unable to meet their mortgage or credit card repayments, pouring billions of dollars into these companies to prop them up until the good times roll again is, by and large, going to benefit the ones who always benefit, the CEO’s and others in the upper eschalons of power.

Already receiving remuneration at a vast percentage difference from their employees, the mechanisms of their pay are designed for them to ride out these perilous times and reap their reward at a later date. It’s like watching some secondary bandit troop come riding through to raid the fields after the first Mongols came through burning everything behind them and you’ve just managed to coax a few fresh shoots of grain back among the ashes. No Congressional or independent oversight is going to stay their hands. They’ll have their stock options to exercise, and they will. They’ll have their golden parachutes, and they’ll float gently down into their next cushy berth in a new corner office or boardroom. And it will all start over again.

Meanwhile, while the wealth of CEO’s is largely intact or carefully immunized from the effects of corporate greed and the foolhardy deregulation of the last twenty years, millions of us won’t see dime one out of the Bush bailout, but we’re the ones who really need it. Those retirees who can’t put gas in their cars, those marginal middle-aged middle-class mortgage-holders who have to decide which bills not to pay, nobody’s looking out for them. Why, it’s really their fault, isn’t it? Taking out a mortgage they couldn’t afford, spending up big on their credit cards, retiring before they absolutely had to . . . what were they thinking? Look what they’ve done to the economy! Personal Responsibility!

If you’re twenty-five or thirty, you’ll have a chance to rebuild. You might end up moving back in with Mom & Dad, but this, too, shall pass, and if you’re careful, you’ll get it all back eventually. But the pain you’re experiencing is suffering for many others. There is no coming back from seeing your retirement funds slashed, even wiped out. Bush, certainly, and Congress, most likely, aren’t going to help you. You’re not a market.

Self-Explanatory
When they say “Police ‘Need Criminals to Boost Numbers’” is that one of those chicken-and-egg puzzles?

Cutting Heads
If there's one good thing that's come from having finished training for the marathon, it'd be that I was home for the telecast of the 1st U.S. Presidential debate. I respect Jim Lehrer as a newsreader, and, in the PBS News Hour, when I catch it, as a moderator of discussion, even though I think he could stand a better set of commentators than he's got. As the moderator of the debate, let alone as the author of the questions, he was pretty weak, I thought, but be that as it may, the debate showed up a couple of points.

First, McCain often approached the point of incomprehensibility, struggling to finish a phrase, let alone a sentence, or to make a point, and always striving mightily to accomplish two things: sound like Ronald Reagan and to portray himself simultaneously as Beltway insider and "maverick" outsider. For anyone who's been paying attention, for even just the last year, neither came off.

Obama was measured and reasonable throughout, often crediting McCain when he didn't have to (and McCain certainly never saw any reason to offer any such courtesy), even when there wasn't so altogether much to hold praiseworthy. Don't forget - don't ever forget - that for all McCain's principled stand against torture as an interrogation method by U.S. troops, he rolled on the CIA and other paramilitary arms of U.S. power. I think he came off well, particularly on domestic issues, but he never stumbled on the foreign policy issues, either, even if he did let McCain slide on a few porkies.

Admittedly, I'm an Obama supporter, but that's not to say I'm blind to his faults. He doesn't have years (and years and years) of history on Capitol Hill, or any great depth in matters military, economic, or whatever. McCain certainly has more personal experience as a legislator than Obama on any matter of governance you can name. But experience doesn't translate into leadership, and that's what the Presidency is about.

Congress makes laws. The Judiciary ensures they are applied or can be. The President leads the nation. Bush has led America into a terrible economic crisis, two wars where one would have been sufficient, and a general malaise of neglect and abandonment of the needy. McCain will do nothing different. Obama will. At any rate, Obama will try. McCain is for McCain, and that's all. Obama is for America, the one we Americans are raised to believe in, the one where if you try you can succeed, where anyone can grow up to be President. That's not McCain, and he's not the President I want to see lead the country for the next four years, let alone eight.

And God help us all if his running mate ever came to power. No, let's not even mention what she could do to the Supreme Court.

Yes, I'm o.k.

That's me at the end, the only one of the five of six runners included in the video being asked if he's in need of medical assistance. I must have looked as healthy as I felt.

Feel better now, though, thankfully.

A Supposedly Fun Thing to Do
That I'll probably NEVER DO AGAIN. ZOMG. 4:32, by the clock over the finish line, and pretty much by my clock, too, although maybe a little less, since it was a couple of minutes before my brain would function enough to remember to stop it. I literally hobbled to the nearest city street after picking up my finisher's shirt and silly medal, and my gear, which all took far longer than I liked. But after buying a sports drink, which I consumed walking home the last block, and then polishing off the one I bought yesterday, I discovered perhaps the most painful aspect of doing silly things like this: showering. Yes, even though this is something you'd think would be a blessed relief, in fact, removing the salt from certain sensitive areas hurts a lot. Pain was inevitable, as previously mentioned, but this was suffering. Only briefly, of course. After that it was a matter of getting the water hot enough to restore my internal body temperature to normal and then drinking lots of water.

It was, however, a really interesting course. Starting on the north side of the harbour, and crossing the Harbour Bridge on a beautiful Spring morning, was a splendid start. Even better, the race then loops through the Domain and Botanical Gardens out to Mrs. Macquarie's Point, and past the naval base at Woolloomooloo, before heading back through East Sydney and into Darlinghurst along Oxford Street (strangely deserted, for the most part, although you could hear the Saturday night gay bar discos still pumping out the jams). The best part of this stretch was the bandit who jumped in: "I've been drinking for eight hours! And I'm going to run with you!" I'll never know what happened to him, but I doubt he lasted long.

The course took a loop through Centennial Park, out to Randwick Racecourse, and doubled-back on itself a couple of times along the way. Very annoying, but oh, well. After that, it was straight through the heart of the city via Surry Hills, my old stomping ground, as it were, and off along a stretch of highway to Leichhardt. And it was a stretch. By this time, we'd passed 28k, and I was looking for that 32k marker, with the excuse that, if I can get past that, it will be the longest I have ever run continuously and maybe there'll be a water station and I can take a little break. There was, I did, and it was the first one that still had some Gu. Up until then, I'd been making do with the two I'd carried - and consumed by about the 18k mark, jelly beans and diluted sports drink. Jelly beans, I think, are not as good. Sort of reminds me of that NY'er article, where they talked about Frank Shorter shaking up Coke to remove the fizz - a stop-gap measure until technology catches up. Of course, it has, and judging by the wrappers I saw, there was Gu provided, or maybe those were just the packets people had brought of there own.

Hairpin turn at Norton Street, and back up through Ultimo to the city. Nice working-harbour views. My training run had taken me - literally - over some parts of this course. Normally the Old Glebe Bridge is closed to traffic, but I'd had a nice look at it many times, crossing the Anzac Bridge above it. The loop through the Rocks was strangely desolate, although there's not much reason for anyone but a stevedore to be there generally, so I shouldn't be surprised. Suddenly, however, we were under the south towers of the Harbour Bridge and making the loop around Circular Quay. Packed to the rafters it was (and it was the first time anyone called out, "keep going Keith Richards"). By this time, walking was long since not an option. If I walked it became harder and harder to start running again. Murakami's mantras and examples did little, but I employed them - I am here to run; I am a running machine. Helped, I suppose, as I managed a bit of a kick over the last K and crossed the line better than I had any real reason to expect.

I was done in. I've regained a little energy, and the blisters I thought I felt coming up over the last 8K never did materialize. Clearly, taking the advice from the salesperson at Rebel Sport to buy a half-size up was worthwhile.

Now if I can just make it into work tomorrow. . . .

Last Gasp
Well, the training is over, so it's all on for Sunday. I missed a few days, unfortunately, but most here at the end, during the tapering off period, so maybe it's not so bad. I've done 93% of the training, all up, although I admit to being fairly slack about the cross-training element. I mean, if I ride my bike around town for a couple of hours doing errands, stopping here and there, does that still count? I guess I'll find out.

The race pack is seriously disappointing. Not only did I have to buy the shirt, but the stuff they hand out for free is handbills - not even discount coupons. I mean, in NYC, even if the shirt was just a cotton T, it was part of the entry. It's not like I'm in contention for any prizes, so it's all down to personal achievement, now.

The NY'er had an interesting piece on marathoning a couple of weeks ago, centered around the great hope of the nation for the Beijing games (but, my, didn't that Kenyan dude kick it?). Basically, all the big races and Western elite runners are subsidised by us hundreds and thousands of slowpokes. So why can't they hand out an advance tube of Gu?

I'm also readying Murakami's memoir, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running," which is just annoying. Blah, blah, blah, I run every day and at least one marathon in under 4 hours every year. . . ." Bastard. No, actually, although I don't think memoir is his form, there's some good stuff in it here and there. I especially like: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional (which I've since learned is Ghandi's). I may write that on my arm for Sunday.

Obligatory
Saturday was local council elections across NSW, so I got to vote for Mayor - Lord Mayor, no less - and a referendum (on whether Sydney should be divided into wards, and guaranteeing 3 councillors each, theoretically making the overall body more representative. At this level of government, party politics doesn't get in the way quite so much as it does at the State and Federal level. Clover Moore, for example, is an independent, and while Labor otherwise has been dominant, the Greens have a significant influence. The independents and Greens in the bigger houses play much more of a spoiler role, when they play any role at all.

Now the NSW State government (Labor) has been getting kicked around lately, what with the Premier resigning after sacking his cabinet, the new guy making some poor picks of his own and so on. The conventional wisdom basically runs that the State would kick Labor out, if there was a decent opposition. And it's true; the Liberals have been woeful. As for the Greens, well, you might just as well not vote as vote for them. They just don't have the power base. But if the Liberals can't make a go of it at the next election, they really ought to just stay home. WA just went (barely) for the Liberals, making Labor's wall-to-wall government stranglehold a thing of the past, and probably enlivening the hopes of the party here, too. We'll see. If the new guy manages to find the money for the infrastructure spending, and doesn't run into any more ministers-without-pants scandals, Labor could still pull it off.

And it's not like the Liberals nationally are all that, although having ousted the pathetic Brendan Nelson in favor of silvertail Malcolm Turnbull, they might yet have the nous to stand up to the Rudd government and make a challenge in 3 years. I don't think Turnbull's really got the credentials or the charisma, but that's just me. Peter Costello finally turning down the leadership sort of definitively probably helped Turnbull, but for all the fun it's been to listen to the whinging about Costello's memoir and will-he-won't-he (get real; he never had the nerve) stand for leader, it'd be nicer if they'd just get on with the job.

In some ways it's been a relief to focus on the U.S. Presidential run. McCain just gets nastier all the time. How anyone could ever have believed he was a politician of a different sort - a maverick - should have been put to rest as soon as he was shown embracing Bush in a bear hug after losing the nomination in '04. You is my bestest friend, George, no matter what anybodys says (including you). Jeez. Principles, eh? And look at his running mate! I mean, Obama picking Biden was a little bit of a surprise. What? He needed a daddy? O.k., that was unfair. Biden's not bad. Every time he turns up on t.v. here, he's asking the pointed question of somebody who needs to be poked with something sharp. He's not a bad speaker, he's got the credentials for the top job, he's got the gravitas. So why Alaskan Governor Palin? What was Johnny thinking? Was it really just his infamous temper flaring up over being denied Lieberman? Screw you guys, then, if I can't have Joe, I'll pick this no-name chick? Nah. And it's not all about the oil (in ANWR), either. Don't forget, McCain is fully aware that all the crude under the tundra would have zero net effect on gas prices and wouldn't last a year, even if you could pull it all out at once, or before two years from deciding to drill there. Is it the guns? The anti-abortionism? The mommy factor? She's freaking clueless, even if she isn't afraid to open her mouth and let everyone know. She won't melt down, and she won't make (quite) as much a fool of herself as Quayle did, but she's just a stunt.

I sit next to another ex-pat at work. I knew, the instant I met him, that he was a Republican, but, since he's from Chicago, and since he's recently spent a fair amount of time laughing at Palin and McCain, I asked. Yeah, die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool GOP. Voting Obama. Wouldn't have voted McCain even before Palin. For all the talk of stealing Hillary voters off the Democrats, I reckon John'll have driven off a few others who might have stuck with their party just like he did this guy. What a maverick.

Into the Infinite
David Foster Wallace, an author whose novels I've enjoyed immensely - including the immense "Infinite Jest" - hanged himself. I can't say how sorry I am to hear that. Other authors of his generation have pointed to him as the "smartest guy in the room", but I guess there are sometimes just demons beyond endurance even for such as Mr. Wallace.

Boom
The Large Hadron Collider is up and running, and so far no black holes sucking us into another dimension. At least, not that we’re aware of. Let’s see what happens when they actually start smashing up protons.

Closing in
Today's 19k was nearly as fascinating to me as Thursday's 6k, for the latter of which I turned in a clocked time of under 5 minutes per K. Today, however, at just under 6k, even if slower, showed something remarkable: after all these weeks, 19k, which was unimaginable 16 weeks ago, doesn't even require the kind of effort it did the first time I ran it, just the motivation. And there's the rub: I'm very tired, so psyching myself up for the training runs is getting a little old. Gu does seem to help - thanks, bro, but what helps even more is knowing this will all end soon.

Although there is still to be a running cabal at the office, at least until summer hits its stride.

Prep Work
Well, that's the longest training run done now. From here on, it's tapering off, up until 21 September, when I'll run 10k further than I did today. I gotta say, my only hope at this point is that the taper does the job, resting me, but still keeping up whatever little stamina I've developed these last 15 weeks, because the 32k kicked my butt today. I took the Gu(tm) the Counselor thoughtfully shipped past Customs, one shot before I went out, one at about 10-15k, and another somewhere around the 20k mark (all distances are approximate, based on my vague recollection of where the markers fall while I'm drafting the route on Map My Run), but the first on-route shot fell short of helping within the next 5k covered, and I can only hope the last one was what enabled me to shuffle through the remainder of the run. By the time I was on the last 2k, I was thoroughly done in, unable to accomplish any chores, which will now all have to be done tomorrow, along with some swimming or bike-riding. Given how my back and neck were seizing up over the last 10k, maybe I should go for weights and push-ups and the other exercises the trainer I'd been working with over October-March set out for me.

Racing
Yesterday's 23k felt o.k., and that may have been helped by the contribution of a case of Gu(tm) from the Counsellor. It couldn't have hurt. I'll carry some with me for the remainder of the training, especially next Saturday's 32k, the longest training run of all. I'll probably carry some on the day, too, just in case they're not handing it out with sufficient frequency to support my caloric requirements to complete the race.

Meanwhile, speaking of races, did Obama really choose Biden? I mean, not to be unduly rude, but WTF? It's better than Gore's Lieberman choice, but, still. It's a little Bush-istic, isn't it? Picking the old guy to add gravitas/experience? I'd have been happier with Richardson. I'll admit, Biden plays well on the news here, asking the hard, pointed questions. That can't hurt. Anyway, Democrats, go figure.

American Humor
Monday, M. took me to see David Sedaris. I guess the Counsellor and others of us had spoken often enough of how funny we found Sedaris' material that she thought it would be a special treat, given I'm such a fan. He is funny, and I enjoy his memoir pieces and so forth in the NY'er, but a book launch and reading was probably more effort than I'd have gone to on my own. Strangely enough, he was originally booked into a theatre venue, but things took an even stranger turn when they moved it to the Opera House. Nevertheless, it was packed to the rafters, nearly. I didn't hear many American accents, so he must have a following of his own. No doubt Sydney's gay population would have had something to do with it. The readings were very good. He got a lot of laughs. In fact, and in keeping with one piece that's never been published, he's better out loud than on paper. The interview with Judith Lucy, an excellent Australian comedian, was perhaps less successful, but mainly because it took some time to warm up, so that Sedaris spent a little time repeating himself, essentially. He's good, though, despite the odd nervous tic of introducing each piece with "I wanted to read something from [x]," as though apologizing for reading something different. He wanted to, and he did. I particularly enjoyed a Thurber-esque animal fable. Dead on. A nice treat, in the end, and I may have recruited a new member to Democrats Abroad.

Yes, It's Boring, But There's Nothing Else
29k yesterday, and it took just under 3 hours. I'd pretty well psyched myself out regarding my chosen course two weeks ago, doing the erroneous 32k, but now that I had some landmarks, it actually went pretty well, getting out to the Olympic Park, anyway. Somewhere along the trip back, though, with enforced stops to wait for traffic lights, I started stiffening up badly again, so that - again - by the time I got to Leichardt, I was reduced to jogging a K or two and walking a block or two, which seriously ate into my hoped-for two-hours-and-forty-five minutes intention. Not too bad, but it pretty much put paid to the rest of the day, which was spent largely in hobbling out to the laundry and back and watching the Olympics.

I know that NBC back in the States had a hand in the scheduling of the swimming, but the coverage here seems largely to consist of water polo, basketball, soccer, and archery. I think you've got to be pretty die-hard to stick with any of these, let alone badminton and ping-pong. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, so far so good for Michael Phelps, superfish. Eight today? Alas, I'll be out watching the Rabbitohs take on the Manly Sea Eagles, one of the best sides in the premiership.

Navigational
For this week's long run, 26k, I decided the best option was to run straight out Parramatta Road until I reached a reasonable cut-off to the Olympic Park. Easy to navigate, I thought, and a bit of a change. It would mean crossing some traffic intersection choke-points, but that oughtn't to delay me more than a couple of minutes here and there. However - and there had to be a however, didn't there? - I missed my turn. Suddenly, I was right behind the park, just the same (o.k., not suddenly; by this point it had taken damn near forever), so I swung in and started looking for the interior loop I'd plotted. Never did find it. Nevertheless, on the theory that I should do one anyway, I ended up following a longer loop than expected. By the time I got back on track - and stopping to examine a wall map helped me reorient myself - I was nearly done in. When I got home and replotted the route according to the path actually travelled, I'd done nearly 32k. What's killing me is, despite walking a lot of the path home, I did the course in two-and-a-half hours, i.e., 148 minutes, which works out to something like four-and-a-half minutes per k. I gotta be doing the math wrong, because I was very deliberate in keeping a "reasonable" pace, and probably walked most of the extra 7k. Even better, somewhere along the way, my ankle wallet unzipped, and my house key fell out. I had to spend 30 minutes waiting on a locksmith, while the salt of my perspiration dried in snail trails along my arms. I'm well sore, too. What a day. Swimming tomorrow will be just the ticket to loosen up, but I've also got to do the shopping, and bring my bike in for repairs.

Meanwhile, tonight's the Rabbitohs, so I'll spend some time out in the wind-chill just to top things off. The way I feel, they'd better bloody win, or I might not make it through the 80 minutes.

More Gloating About the Marathon
My running mate at work has pulled up with microfractures along his right shin, requiring rest for at least a week, if not putting him out of contention altogether. He's very committed, so I hope not, as I'm also looking forward to beating his time, since our runs together tend to be just a little slower, more often than not, than my solo runs. Still, he's twenty years younger, at least, so I won't feel bad about a different outcome.

I screwed up my Saturday run, though, when I was supposed to do 24k and only accomplished 22, as a result of not studying the mapped route carefully enough in respect to the final 4k, which led me to cut off a loop at the end. It's actually getting rather difficult to find longer and longer runs that aren't just loops around the same stretches of road, with a couple of final turns around a couple of local blocks, which also led me to a really difficult bike ride across a few bridges up north, and which probably won't end up as an new route, simply because I got so thoroughly turned around trying to find the bike paths.

Of course, I also recognize that all these marathon-related posts must be getting dull, a failing I think that inevitably occurs in those of us who train for such things, but it does become an obsession, so please don't think it's all just gloating smugness at how fit I'm becoming. I am pleased to go have some trousers taken in, just the same.

Long Weekend
I planned my weekend around a Saturday afternoon Rabbitohs home game, and the fact that I had to go to the bank, the post office, and visit a doctor to have some stitches removed (minor kitchen incident). In the end, since the knots had come undone, I did the stitches myself. The remaining chores, at opposite ends of the city, presented similar levels of difficulty, but provided plenty of opportunity for riding my bike. It was only having to navigate the crazed Catholics meandering through town with absolutely no awareness of anything around them but themselves. Nice they had a good time, I suppose, but there were more barricades up than for APEC, and not all of us were headed for mass at Randwick Racecourse (where, I suppose, a trifecta bet could only be Father-Son-Holy Ghost). I’m not a little glad to see the end of “World Youth Day”.

The Rabbitohs game, however, turned out to be on Sunday, which meant I had to do my 16k run and head straight out to Olympic Park. (Speaking of which, Olympic Park, where the various venues left over from 2000 have little to occupy themselves, was used as a gigantic shelter for many hundreds of WYD pilgrims, sleeping on the floor of various gymnasiums and so forth, serviced by semi-trailer showering and toilet facilities.) But the Bunnies lost, badly, outplayed by Wests Tigers, and I returned home tired and a little muscle-sore, in rather a bad mood, facing a large load of laundry to complete, exacerbating the gloom of the evening.

Wascals
The Mighty Bunnies won last night, against the Parramatta Eels, in what was probably one of the most fun evenings I've spent at a sporting event. It was a bigger crowd than usual, which may be attributable in part to (a) their winning streak, now at 5-in-a-row (for the first time since 1994); and (b) World Youth Day, for which a special seating section was on offer, although I can't say that there was any evidence of Catholic pilgrims visible.

Talking Down
I never voted for the man, but I have had little, if anything, against the Reverend Jesse Jackson, even admiring him as a candidate for President, perhaps especially in knowing he never stood a chance. But he’s a showboat, and known for his inappropriate commentary - remember “hymie town”? I’ll bet there a lot of Jewish NY’ers who do. Unfortunately, like the Reverend Al Sharpton, Jackson is regarded as an African-American spokesman especially when he does or says something harmful to himself or his community, a situation you’d think he’d recognise and try to mitigate, rather than offering the Bill O’Reilly’s of the world more ammunition. It’s not going to hurt Obama among his supporters, but it’s going to give aid and comfort to those who will irrationally oppose his candidacy, which will have the inevitable effect of swaying the weak-minded into a knee-jerk vote for Bomb-Iran (with cigarettes) McCain, just when they might very well be willing to try something different, as well as to support the disgruntled Clintonites in doing something equally stupid. Why do Democrats seem so intent on shooting each other in the foot?

This Little Light
M. & I caught the Rolling Stones concert flick, Shine a Light, over the weekend, about which I'll say, it's a well-done concert movie, if not necessarily a stand-out; the Stones are pretty much, by the evidence of the performance documented, very set in their persona, very much aware of themselves as performers, as The Stones, and don't offer much in any way new or fresh of themselves; Buddy Guy, who appears for one song, blows them all away, as acknowledged by Keith Richards, who, in a gesture of submission, hands his guitar to Guy, saying, "this is yours". I really have to find a copy of Stop Making Sense, now, to round out the concert movie experience, but I don't expect it to exceed Berlin.

Highways
I bought a bike last weekend, to help me figure out new routes around home, as the distances get longer, so I won't be left just doing loops of the shorter distances already plotted out on Map My Run. My specific first inspection tour, last Sunday, was to find a way, if such existed, across the Anzac Bridge. It wouldn't add much distance, per se, but it would mean crossing a bridge, which would be beneficial for race day, when, last year, anyway, the marathon crossed three bridges. Hill work, essentially. I didn't find the bike path until I was already well into highway traffic, at which point I discovered myself running parallel to the pedestrian/bike lane, separated by a concrete barrier. At the first break in traffic, I hauled the bike across and proceeded normally. All well and good, but this week, for my 19k run, I figured on hooking up with the bike path on spec; that is, I made an unfortunate assumption of where it started. Nope. It actually starts on the other side of Victoria Road, and has a overpass of its own to join up with the bridge's bike/footpath. So, as usual, it seems, I was left with bushwacking my way to a point where I could rejoin the plotted route. Less dangerous than the previous weekend, but frustrating. I'll have to make a trip into town, soon, to see about something similar for the Harbour Bridge, not to mention finding a way over the Lane Cove Bridge. That'd put me three-for-three on the previous route's bridges, although I hear this year the route's been changed. Apparently, international participation rates are low because the course has been considered too hard. (Too hard? These people run marathons for money. Wimps.)

Meanwhile, as we all know, intensive aerobic exercise shuts down certain autonomic processes, i.e., digestion, which I've discovered affects me rather dramatically, post-run, at distances more than 10k. We shall have to hope not to be "caught short" come race day. Say no more.

Sound and Vision
If I don't write about it shortly after the fact, it seems I just forget, but I'm finally getting around to mentioning the Sydney Film Festival screening I attended with M. two weeks ago, at the Metro Theatre, sort of an odd venue for movies, as it's a concert hall normally, but it worked out well enough, in a cross-referential way, as the movie was the concert film for Lou Reed's Berlin, performed live for the first time ever in Brooklyn's St Ann's in 2006. It played the Sydney Festival, the annual arts-around-town event, in 2007, but the tickets were terribly expensive, so we didn't go, even though M. is a long-time devotee of the album, as am I. A lot of people disparage it, and there are elements I find a little over-the-top, but nevertheless, it is as complete a concept album as was ever produced during the period when concept albums were all the rage. Because it was the follow-up to Transformer, I think a lot of people were just so disoriented by the album's thorough departure from its predecessor, that they never gave it a proper chance. And having seen this concert, or film thereof, anyway, I have to tell you it's time to go back and listen to Berlin again. Julian Schnabel did a great job as the director, capturing the concert experience quite effectively. Antony Hegarty, of Antony & the Johnsons, was a featured backup singer, performing an encore on lead vocal of "Candy Says," from the Velvet Underground's eponymous third album, and, it's rumoured, Schnabel's daughter was one of the choir members. What was most remarkable, somehow, was the pure emotionality of Lou Reed's performance. He was deeply involved in the story he was telling, and I even thought he was on the verge of tears. This is a concert film to stand up with all the best concert films. I may see about renting Stop Making Sense, well, after I go see Shine a Light, just to round things off.

Trail Mix
Wow, that mid-week 8k could have gone better. I went into the nearby park, following the road that winds along the river, crossing Delhi Road over into a small subdivision that more or less backs onto the industrial park I work in, intending to cut across a bit of the Great Northern Walk trail to loop back through and around. It amounts to nearly 8 1/2 kilometers, but that was about as close as I could plot, and a better route, on the map, than the 5-6k extension I'd worked out earlier. I didn't get lost, but still ended up having run for more than an hour, well beyond what my pace should have led to, largely as a result of the trail turning out to be far more difficult than anticipated. Having reached a rocky escarpment, I discovered the trail had disappeared, and had to spend some considerable time locating a marker. Once that was done, I was faced with a steep, winding staircase, cut in among the natural rock, leading back down to Delhi Road. By the time I got down, I was breathing normally, so the run back wasn't too hard, at least not until the final stretch leading out of the park, which, while not terribly steep, is a bit long, at least for that stage of the run. God only knows what I'm going to end up with once the kilometers really pile up mid-week, or where, for the matter. Tomorrow's 5k will have to serve as a muscle-loosener for the 16 on Saturday. I am ow.

Progress
I've been tracking my marathon training in Map My Run. I'm pretty satisfied with how I'm going, although Saturday's 8K was harder than I expected. I guess I didn't get enough sleep or went out too hard at the start, probably the latter, since I still finished within the 5:30/K range. I don't know that the MMR reports are particularly useful. I suppose if I was tracking calories or weight loss, maybe more so, but the bars seem to be pretty even. (I also don't know if that link will work for anyone, although I believe I've allowed my training profile to be public.) It's not reasonable to suppose that I'll keep up the 5-5:30 pace over the upcoming weeks, as the kilometerage (?) piles up, let alone over the actual race, but wouldn't that be something? This Saturday, Hal Higdon ups the ante to 14K, and the midweek runs go from 5-6-5 to 5-8-5, and pretty much every week thereafter just climbs and climbs. Ow.

Luck
According to the package insert, "Shisa" (talismans from Okinawa) are paired decorative sculptural images, more or less like a cross between a lion and a dog, which are placed on rooftops or flanking doorways or gates to one's home. "Shisa are wards, believed to protect from various evils. When found in pairs, the shisa on the right traditionally has an open mouth, and the one on the left, a closed mouth. The open mouth is to let good spirits in, and the closed mouth is to keep bad spirits out. Originally, pairs like this were called 'shisa and guardian dogs': the left, with its mouth closed, is the guardian; the right, with it's mouth open, is the shisa. Some people believe that one is male and the other female and provide various justifications for which is which. For example, the female has her mouth shut, as she should; or, the male has his mouth shut to hold in all the family's good fortune. The shisa is a variation of the guardian lions - fu dogs - of China. mine I picked up in San Francisco when I was there last.

Now, they're sitting outside my front door, helping me win the lottery or something.

Wooden Spoon Premiership
I reckon the Rabbitohs are pretty well assured of the wooden spoon this year, even if we're only just coming on to halfway through the season. Round 12, at ANZ Stadium, against the Dragons, started off with an early try by Souths, only to see the opposition take the lead, with only a (very) late final try to make the score remotely more even. Still, it was a good game, with only a very little of the kind of poor ball handling the Rabbitohs exhibited early in the season, and some remarkable moments of play on either side, particularly when Illawarra failed to capitalize on a series of knocking on advances in one that should have ended with a try, save for the persistence of one defender. That was one of those sporting moments that only come up rarely, and worth the game.

Go Souths.