Urban Philosophification
I sometimes find myself engaged in a discussion of “do I miss NYC” which sometimes turns into “why don’t you miss it?” or even “I know you miss it, but you won’t admit it.” I don’t give it a lot of thought, most of the time, really, unless I’m asked, and that does happen even now more than you might think. I suppose I would if we’d ended up in some dismal suburb, but even at that I might not, having spent my early years in the hundred acre wood (without the imperialist subtext of the Milne stories, of course – more like the inanity of Peanuts). I spent time in and around farmland and out in the Midwest, traveled to Europe, met people from all over the world, studied other cultures, etc., and NYC is pretty much an aberration as cities go. NYC extends well beyond Manhattan, of course, but nobody much thinks of it that way. Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Bronx are just dense suburban extensions (as are the near reaches of New Jersey and Connecticut for that matter) of the city proper, which is a macrocosmic city forced into a microcosmic scale by confining it to a (relatively) tiny estuarial island. Paris may have the Île de Cité, but the majority of that is taken up with tourist destinations. NYC’s central island is larger and contains the majority of midsized to large businesses as well as a sometimes overwhelming density of housing. Most cities in my experience are sprawling constructions, especially if they haven’t been culturally or commercially superseded by time or their neighbors (cf. New Orleans), having started from a central point but grown well beyond it, eventually developing ancillary “center” points. This can have a dismal effect on a city’s starting point. Downtown Los Angeles, for example, is very nearly a wasteland outside of business hours, and hubs of activity of one kind or another have taken up position around it, each operating as a distinct urban environment for the area residents. Similarly, however, the original center and its outpost locations can equally thrive. Atlanta is a possible example; Sydney definitely is. Perhaps it’s my understanding of this that’s colored my experience of having relocated across the globe. Parramatta and Chatswood operate as remote branches of Sydney city center, and the suburbs that string themselves along the access routes offer distinct tendrils of enterprise and culture characterized by the populations having driven the overall pattern of growth. You can go as far as you like, or not, in availing yourself of what’s on offer. Sydney, like other cities, presents its idiosyncrasies as well. Over Christmas and New Year’s, Sydney offers a distinct experience from any comparable period in NYC, but what sometimes doesn’t get taken into account is that there is no worthwhile comparison to the northern hemisphere. It’s high summer here, school’s out, the ocean is warm and inviting. Nobody stays home, nobody goes to town. We’re all on holiday, and we like it. Now think about what’s summer in the city up north. Different in kind, if not in detail, isn’t it? Just like the weather. My first year in Sydney presented this as a remarkable experience, but this year it was only lacking in normality because we had our first international visitor in and therefore sought to overcome the entertainment limitations we perceived. It turns out, naturally enough upon reflection, that we overestimated those, as Bondi and similar excursions were more than sufficiently engaging. Well, this is what other Sydneysiders do, as do other visitors to this country at this time of year, so I don’t know why we should have been surprised. The uncertainty principle of quantum physics (whatever; what, I’m a scientist now?) asserts itself philosophically: what is observable in time makes space indeterminate and so forth. Christmas in NYC is not Christmas in Sydney, etc. The Fourth of July is not paralleled by Australia Day. But why should I want it to be in either case? Just so that the experience I have is familiar or that more restaurants are open when I feel like going out for a meal? There is actually very little requirement of me to adjust my expectations. Just like moving here in the first place. Adapting to life in Sydney has required no more than learning to know where what I want is, not in having to learn what what I want is. I say kilometres and think miles, speak of temperature in centigrade rather than Fahrenheit, but that’s not very different from most born Australians my age. I have my cross-cultural temper tantrums, to one extent or another, just like anyone else would (and there’s a television serial out of Britain, called “A New Life Down Under” about just that, with a group of English ex-pats moaning over their problems adapting to their new environments: whingers, all of them), but don’t you just hate those people who come from one place to another and believe their prior experiences are the template for all future experience, who arrive in a place and believe they should be able to behave, to think, as if their presence in a place confers ownership, without taking responsibility? If I’m going to live in Sydney, don’t I have to participate in the city? I did in NYC, and although there were enough people there who didn’t, there were plenty of us who did. Listen, just because you can get a bank to loan you the money for a home or to open a business, that doesn’t privilege you above all others in the neighborhood, just like there is no privilege in having tourist dollars to spend versus spending your daily wage. There are some things I’d like to change. I’d like Sydney to be more pedestrian-friendly, for one. The infrastructure is there, the attitudes are not. I expect that will change, however, over time as the population increases and the sprawl can’t keep up. The inevitability of urban life in this and many other respects is that all these people cannot live together so closely unless civility prevails, although I’ll admit that this is paired with the inevitability of some level of conflict, too. Sydney is just not as accustomed yet to a densely urban life as it is becoming, but it will be: it’s inevitable. One of the factors that have made Australia such a distinct place is that it has always been separate, an isolated continent whose dominant culture existed at such a physical distance from its roots and has been so desirous of retaining a connection that it has foisted off change even while it has been forced to accept it. This is not the same place Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes and their ilk refuse to live in, although you can still find that place here. Australia’s position in the Pacific, in Asia as a cultural region, is much more acknowledged than it has been, and that’s having an inevitable effect, and not just in population density and disparity. In many respects, this is where East meets West, and it may well be the place where that scale of change begins to spread across the rest of the world. I feel like I may be getting in on the ground floor.

Globalization Role Play
The Morning News includes an RPG outline of the Ikea experience, and it’s just like that. The gaming instructions fail to mention, however, that despite your best intentions never to return, you will go back again and again until you have more non-identical allen wrenches lying around the house than you can ever think of anything to do with them except maybe as some kind of post-ironic art. And just what is a lingonberry?

Justice in Operation
I figure this case, shutting down part of the egregious USA Patriot Act, to have been decided by the Ninth Circuit, yeah? If only all our civil liberties suits could be brought there. It does bug me that the Humanitarian Law Project is also trying to help out the Tamil Tigers, but under the rule of law, everybody gets a witness.

Open and Shut
Thank goodness Kim’s really Australian, because she’s the last one in now that Lleyton and Mark bit the dust in the fourth round. Is it the U.S. Open if Roddick and Agassi go to the finals?

Net Results
The Bottom Line is closed forever. I only went a few times over the years, most often probably for John Cale, who was a regular, but always saw a terrific band and a solid performance, sometimes unexpectedly, as when I saw the Violent Femmes while they were both still good and new as well as only just signed to a label. Lou Reed is probably the most memorable musician I saw there from an iconic NYC standpoint, and although I can’t think of an exotic night, at least I never had to sit behind one of the pillars or posts that framed the outer seating area. Sure, the Palladium in its heyday was a better overall concert venue, but in my time, only Folk City would have rivaled the Bottom Line for an intimate musical experience. To be fair, they couldn’t pay the rent, but a 250% mark-up is pretty severe.

Advance, Australia, Fair
Yes, happy Australia Day. I don't know that commas belong in the lyric of the anthem like that, but it seems correct. The final line is, after all, an admonisment to the nation to give all and sundry a "fair go," a noble sentiment worth pointing out on the country's national day, especially in light of the last year's refugee crisis and various other multi-cultural hiccups. I probably ought to look up the rest of the words. Meanwhile, tall ship races down on the Harbour, military fly-overs, hot air balloons, fireworks (of course), time on the beach and by the barbeque . . . so much to do, so little time to do it in.

Maintenance
Dear Editor: I am not a crank. But your comments don't work. O.k., I changed the comments to HaloScan, and we'll hope for the best. Of course any comments previously posted are now gone (sorry, but tough), but I promise I read them all. Really.

Year of the Built Environment
The Australian Federal Government has named 2004, as it has named other years, for the particular area of improvement it wants to highlight. 2002 was the “Year of the Outback,” and 2003 was “Year of the Child.” 2001 was the Centenary of Federation, so there wasn’t any activist sponsorship, probably because in 2000 the effort for making Australia a republic failed. I thought this year was supposed to highlight Volunteerism, to judge by the fifty-cent piece in ciculation (or as of yesterday, the Monkey), but the so-called “built environment” seems a worthy enough effort, given the present and increasingly problematic global warming situation. It seems too little too late to tout the latest business efforts towards energy-efficient buildings, especially when we’ve had a hundred years or more of greed working to the opposite end, but every step is one in the right direction, even if I may yet end up with waterfront property in my lifetime, but without any effort of my own to that condition, especially since the Ross ice shelf is collapsing and the North Polar icecap is thinning already. We probably should have bought our property at the top of Surry Hills, but there’s lots of room for more Harbour in front of the Opera House. Meanwhile, the greening of office buildings and new efforts in developing more environmentally friendly homes, especially given the nature of the country’s nature – extended periods of drought, increasing problems with soil salinity, etc. (not to mention the problem of foreign fauna, such as the Indian mynah, mucking with the locals) – could prove to be another front on which Australia advances the cause of the planet. Advance Australia fair, indeed.

Parramatta Parameters
Welcome to the Outer West. Maybe not so much as Windsor, where M.’s grandmother lives, or even Penrith, where the t.v. weather reports provide the difference in daily temperatures above those given for the city, but enough that when it’s hot in the CBD, it’s sure to be notably hotter by the time I get to work. It figures that the patron saint of Finland also has oversight of refrigeration, but since that’s given us air conditioning, he’s the go-to guy in heaven this time of year. (Yeah, sure he’s made up, but so was Mr. Christopher. I’ll have to keep searching for the official version. Meanwhile, Catald, Goteberda, Heribert of Cologne, Solange, Swithun, and Trophimus of Arles all have drought relief in their purview, and perhaps that will do.)

iOWa
William Safire is an astute political commentator, but he’s also a cat. He’s got his claws out for Dr. Dean without fail, and Iowa has provided a nice little scratching post. If I don’t vote for Kucinich, maybe I should go for Kerry.

The Deconstruction of the Constitution
The USA Patriot Act will be renewed. I say this based on the final paragraph in the NY Times article reviewing George II’s State of the Union, which reads, in part: ”Democrats have promised to oppose renewing many important sections of the law . . .”, clearly indicating that Congress is going to roll over for seeing this law enshrined permanently. Politics is about compromise. (But you can’t sell just a little bit of your soul: the devil wants it all.)

Rock the Vote
On the President Match quiz, Kucinch comes up on top from my answers, followed by Kerry, with Sharpton edging Dean for 3rd place. Maybe if I answered “Yes” on the question of previous electoral experience, I might have gotten a better answer, but why do I always end up thinking I should look more closely at Dennis? (Dear Editor, I am not a crank.) No more on-line quizzes until after the primary.

Meanwhile, Back in the States
Keeping a weblog turns out to be mostly about keeping up with the folks back home – which isn’t a bad thing, of course, although I suppose I ought to relinquish any imagined vast audience interested in this particular New York Yankee in the Opera House forecourt. Still it lead an old friend into contact, and this developed into additional familial news: off-line brother T. has ventured into the commercialization of his cartooning, and even gets a staff credit. Tomz Comix appear in the back of the Ukiah Bullhorn, the current issue of which features the adventures of California’s new governor as he ventures into Mendocino County. I smell syndication: watch out, Boondocks.

Wait for the DVD
My everlasting thanks – o.k., today’s thanks – to C.B., one of Buffalo’s famous ‘bloggers, for locating and posting What Not to Do During Return of the King. By the way, I think Gandalf is Dumbledore, but the names have been changed to get around licensing restrictions.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye
I’ve finally gotten around to reading T. Corraghessan Boyle’s collection of short stories, Greasy Lake, which has proven far more appropriate under the circumstances of Bush II’s latest announcements regarding space exploration, i.e., putting a man on the moon again, to wit: the story “The New Moon Party,” in which a candidate for the highest office in the land succeeds to the office by promising to build a brand new moon to replace the shabby, meteor-pitted old one. Similar tactic: similar effect? Of course, since the success of the fictional effort turns into a global debacle that leaves the protagonist reviled and discredited forever more, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Salt Mines
Back to work at last. The CEO (Catholic Education Office) of the Parramatta Diocese has undertaken a big push to create an HR database, and I'll be leading the charge on making it happen. Today was like being thrown to the lions, to use an apt metaphor, but immersion (to use another, less apt, metaphor) may be the best way of getting started. There was a full staff meeting first thing, complete with opening prayers and a hymn, which was sort of surprising. The Bible Society never did that, but then they had to contend with a variety of sects and so forth, whereas the Catholics, despite their name, can be more . . . discriminating. After four months of unemployment, this could take some getting used to, but I'd better gear up fast by the look of things.

More Oscar Contention
I figure Mystic River is bound to pick up a fair raft of nominations for Academy Awards. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon are all very good in their roles, and Clint Eastwood's direction is solid. Best Picture belongs to Lost in Translation, however, and maybe even Best Actor, and surely Best Direction. Mystic River is good, sure, but the characters are pretty horrible and the story isn't all that much in the end beyond the usual thriller material. In the Cut, as a thriller, wasn't much better, but the direction and cinematography were so far beyond what Mr. Eastwood did that I think it's got to put the screenplay etc. for his film out of the running. That said, I did enjoy it, if only up until Kevin Bacon delivers the most B-grade cop speech to Sean Penn at the end of the movie.

Because I'm a Geek
I have always approved of space exploration, and under other circumstances I'd be glad to hear about a new program to the moon and beyond, even despite the ongoing International Space Station debacle, but this, along with other major spending plans of George II (specifically, the US$1.5 billion for discriminating against homosexuals), comes at rather a bad time, as leading international economists have fingered the US deficit as putting the entire world's economy at risk. Thanks, George; screw it up for everyone but your friends, why don't you? Of course, that's all he's ever cared about anyway.

Hollywood Excursions
I've now been to see two movies in two days. These being the final days before I (finally) start work at my new job, I'm getting in a bit of holiday activities. I'd go to the beach, but the weather has turned again. Yesterday I went to see Lost in Translation, which M. had been to already (and yes, she's still in trouble), accompanied for my part by a friend of ours who teaches Japanese. I think she got more of the jokes than I did, but I got enough, the communication discrepancies being what the film's all about. Vanity Fair referred to Sophia Coppola's remarkable ability to make a movie in which the atmosphere is the plot, but I think that's a fairly fey description of what she's really done here. There are so many forms of communication being explored in the movie, they're hard to list, but there's that layering that the best novels do and that so many movies never even begin to attempt. And Bill Murray is perfectly cast.

Today I went to Master and Commander, which Peter Weir has subtitled with one of the titles from a later volume in the Patrick O'Brien series, I think to forstall sequels, which is just as well, and I'm sure Russell Crowe (whose performance is excellent; he's a better actor than I think he's sometimes credited for, what with the brawling and boasting and so forth) appreciates, as this way he won't have to make a career out of Jack Aubrey alone for ever after. I think the late Mr. O'Brien's fans are going to get the most out of this movie, but it's a well-crafted piece, as I'd expect from Mr. Weir, and lovely to look at.

The final Matrix episode has moved on, so I'll have to wait for the video. Maybe the weather will clear, and I can go to the beach tomorrow.

He Probably Meant "Cuba"
The AP is reporting an attempted hijacking where a passenger demanded to be taken to Australia. More than likely, the plane landed at Dulles when the man gave up his attempt because he needed to use the toilets but there was already a queue. Seriously, I am very saddened to know that we are back in the age of hijackings, which I had thought were left behind 20 years ago. While the terrorism of Osama bin Laden and his ilk (and born of the PLO actions of the 1960's and '70's) are surely to blame, we also need to lay fault at the feet of Tom Ridge, John Ashcroft, and (of course) George Bush II for fomenting a culture of paranoia, exacerbating the condition of already marginal mentally ill members of society with endless escalations and de-escalations of meaningless alert statuses. Security measures are called for, but the games this administration is playing are not meant to make anyone feel safer, only to keep us off balance so as to maintain their hold on power. God, what a hippie I sound like. Still.

Enter the Hive Mind
- or "I like how older people have grammar online"
When I moved to Australia I didn't start a 'blog straight off: that was M.'s job as the writer in the family, and an extension of her work in the days after she moved to the U.S. in emails to her friends (the "postcards from New York"). This represented a misapprehension on my part, because M. was in some measure subverted as a writer by maintaining a weblog, while her e-correspondence had not, and whereas for me a weblog was ultimately a more natural progression from my participation in computer technology from my work life into my personal life, an extension (or intrusion) as natural as that of watching broadcast to subscribing to cable television, or from adding a pager to one's telephonic capabilities to carrying a mobile and "texting" friends. I began - and continue, despite what I've learned in this time - to use this technology as it should be used: to my own ends, that is, to maintain communication with friends and family outside my more immediate geographical (and economic) reach; but I also use these posts from the same kind of vanity described in the NY Times article: to self-publish, in effect, the kind of philosophizing or poetics otherwise unavailable to me. In some ways, starting a 'blog of my own, recognizing (or having revealed to me) the diametric opposition of 'blogging to creating writing, provided insight to aspects of internet-facilitated communications as distinct forms of dialogue, separate from the traditional forms they resemble: email is to letters, as instant messaging is to phone calls, as weblogs are to journals. Not so, at least not when examined closely for the social effects. The e-forms are as revolutionary to communication and interpersonal relations as that of moving from horse-drawn carriages to mechanical locomotion. Internet-based communication is fulfilling the evolutionary changes presaged by telegraphy, the telephone, radio, television, becoming so pervasive and so permeable that thought and action nearly merge. This is only frightening when you spend time reading a Livejournal written and participated in by someone twenty years (or more) your junior, at which point you may well be inspired to curl up and devolve into your constituent protoplasmic particles. Don't despair: it isn't exactly the Matrix, after all, just a bunch of youngers getting ready to change the world the way it must. They do really need to use some of the basic rules of grammar, though, if they want to be understood.

In Other News, Wrap-Artist Christo Announced His Retirement
The most painstaking prank of all time has got to be wrapping a friend's apartment in aluminium foil. Down to the change on the table, but also even going so far as to ensure everything was still useable, including the CDs and books. And when he's done unwrapping everything, he can have a foil ball like nobody's business. (Link via Boing Boing.)

Election-Year Prediction
If "Wolf Blitzer" can do it, so can I: CNN will do whatever it can to beat the ratings of every other news channel, including inflammatory reports before, during, and after the polls close.

Trilogies
It's a bit out-of-order, I know, but M. & I went to see the Return of the King prior to the final installment of the Matrix. I'll probably end up seeing that on my own in the next two weeks: M. was sufficiently put off by the second episode that she lacks the commitment to see the cycle through. Not so Peter Jackson's Tolkien efforts, although as we exited, both of us felt the Two Towers was dramatically the best of the lot. What I really need is to get my hands on the complete DVD set when it's available (note to U.S. based gifts enthusiasts: DVD, like VCRs, has a different format, a deliberate tactic by the cinematic industry to promote sales, er, prevent piracy). With the extra footage - especially the deleted Christopher Lee/Saurman ending - it would be worth watching again. Of course, for the price, nothing's worth that much.

P.S. Since Steve Martin is evidently intent upon remaking every William Powell screwball comedy he can, when should I expect him to do My Man Godfrey?

Beyond a Boundry
Yes, I cribbed the title above from C. L. R. James, but in light of Steve Waugh's final Test match, it was too good a steal to let pass. Mr. Waugh captained the sledgingest (read "trash-talking") cricket team of all time, but also the one to take the World Cup and to make Australian cricket the most successful national sporting enterprise shore-side of swimming. His final innings were conducted here in Sydney, and if he couldn't bring the team victory, he at least managed to snatch a draw from the jaws of outright defeat. I'd have liked to have seen him get a final Test century, but 80's nothing to sneeze at. Good on India for making the match so very memorable.

Next!
14 hours in the air from Sydney to Los Angeles, and if you want to avoid deep vein thrombosis or kidney problems, go by boat instead: Qantas has banned waiting your turn for the toilet in response to US demands over airline security. It could be hard enough when the waitresses came on the intercom 30 minutes before landing to demand that everyone stay seated regardless of the demands of biology, but how are they going to manage this? Over 300 people on board a 747, everyone drinking water to stay hydrated, many wanting to stroll the cabin to keep the blood from settling in their lower extremities, mothers with small children and infants . . . . You there! Sit down, now! Will the air marshalls shoot them? Cuff them to their seats? It's going to get a lot messier before it gets any easier. I spent years taking the train instead of flying whenever time permitted, and now I may resort to the shipping lanes, restricting my travel accordingly, just because it's more civilized, which was my contention previously as well. Look, I know we have to do something about safety, but I don't feel safer because there's an undercover cop with a gun on board or because I have to wait in my seat for no one else to be waiting for the toilets. Screen the baggage, scan the customers, seal the cockpit doors (in other words, spend the money necessary to establish security), but don't just start blaming everyone but yourselves. The airlines are too cheap to spring for security, and the government is too corrupt to force them. I say don't fly; not until they - airlines or Federales - step up to make air travel a safe business.

Up the Rainbow Bridge to Asgard . . .
The Harbour Bridge is not guarded by Heimdal, nor does it connect Sydney to Valhalla, but as you ascend the arch, you are right up at the very height of heaven seemingly, so Thor's theme song seems appropriate to head this post with, prefatory to extolling the virtues of this very expensive tourism activity. I'm actually thinking of making it a requirement of all overseas visitors that they fork out the dough and scale the Coat Hanger with me. That way I'd get to do it more often. It's that good. Groups of a dozen at a time are sent up with a guide, everyone dressed in identical jumpsuits and a harness that clips onto a safety cable and from which everything else you wear depends, including a standard-issue hat, eyeglass thong, radio and headset. Everything that might snag or fall off is left behind in a locker (and the key goes on a cord around your neck, tucked inside the jumpsuit). From check-in to setting off takes about a half-hour, mostly because of the safety lecture and practice run. But once you're on your way, there's no turning back. It only takes about two hours to do the whole climb, stopping along the way, moving fairly slowly to get the most from the views. Pictures are snapped for you at the top, and you get to take one of them home "free," the others being available as prints or CD-ROM, two or more in a set, at a variety of exorbitant prices. Pictures, however, aren't the point. Even the views aren't really the point. Climbing the Bridge is an experience like no other I've had, and I've stood on some of the highest structures built. The only thing I can compare it to is standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. For those Sydney-siders who would scoff and deride the climb as a tourist trap, I would argue that many New Yorkers have felt the same of going up the Empire State Building - but only until they've done it.

Bridge Theatricals
December 25 saw the arrival of SB, my most excellent friend of - gasp - 25 years, who is our first official international visitor, an accomplishment he has expressed some satisfaction in achieving. Although Sydney over the Christmas/New Year's holiday period sometimes gives the impression of a deserted metropolis in one of those post-apocalypse movies, in truth there is quite a lot to do, and we were doing every bit of it would could. SB's arrival with a minor cold kept us from staying up late every night, but we indulged most other pursuits quite fully: dining out, sunbaking at Bondi and bodysurfing nearly daily. One of our first major excursions was to climb the Harbour Bridge, an endeavor I had not looked forward to as I have no particular head for heights. It proved, however, to be great fun, not terribly taxing, and didn't involve a whiff of vertigo, just splendid views all around, including, fortuitously, the hotel where we were booked to have our NYE dinner, the Palisade, an old public house in Miller's Point with a three-quarters view of the Bridge (albeit technically on the "wrong" side). Nevertheless, I would book a table there every year if it were feasible to do so, as the view was incomparable even just from the second floor (3rd floor in the U.S.), let alone the roof, and the food was delicious, well-prepared and presented by a highly amiable staff. The fireworks, as the television-viewing world must know by now, are quite a show, although this year there was no "theme" - just as well if you ask me, if only because we would have had to read right-to-left to figure it out if there had been. SB left this morning, which leaves me, in these next two weeks, more time to 'blog - although that's not to say I'll necessarily take full advantage - while I wait to start my new job in Parramatta on the 19th. Meanwhile, summer in Sydney is finally in full swing, the December doldrums having passed, and there are more beaches than Bondi to explore more fully than I've managed so far. I ought to end up with a tan that lasts through 'til next spring.

Down in Front
I have been an habitue of live performances for many years and derive great enjoyment from them. Some theatrical events have been nearly life-changing in their effect: I am still able to return to the thrilling sensation with which I left the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Majestic Theatre following an all-night performance of Peter Brook's Mahabarata. Sometimes, the performance has been enjoyable and no more, other times I've witnessed just flat-out bad theatre, dance, music, whatever (that's a category, too). The curtain call is often an opportunity to get a look at the cast while they're not moving and speaking, and this is part of the experience as well (and beats the headshots in the Playbill). Applause, I've come to conclude, is like tipping. If the dining experience is good, tip well; if it's very good, tip very well; if it's bad, tip, but tip minimally. In theatre, applaud for the good stuff, stand up for the extraordinary, and leave after the first curtain call when it's been bad. Yes, you should always clap - the actors tried, or the director did, or the stagehands . . . somebody was working at any rate and deserves to feel some acknowledgement of the effort. But you don't have to give everybody a standing ovation at every performance. It's just not possible for everyone to get an A+ every time. In this, I join the public denunciation of the inevitable as it now seems to be, and call upon audiences to sit down for God's sake.

The Employment Process
I've been working in Human Resources a long time now, specializing in database systems, so I'm as familiar with the ins and the outs of the process perhaps even a bit more than many. It came as a surprise, then, that the Catholic Education Office didn't even bother with a second interview, but went straight to the job offer. Just in time for Christmas, too. I'd been looking at a couple of other jobs, and had even interviewed: with Prada (but that was a long shot and wasn't going to pay well), with the University of Technology, Sydney (walk to work: what's not to like?), and a niche HR software development and consulting outfit looking to make a presence in Australia (travel, and a lot of it). The Catholics are the only ones who made an offer and they acted two days after my interview. I suppose I have my referees to thank as much as my qualifications, not to mention my desperate need for new employment. As the product of 12 years' education in the Catholic system, I should do like the athletes (Hi, Mom!) and thank God, too, but I think it's tacky. Tonight we'll celebrate a little - the job doesn't start until the end of January, so we still need to be careful with money. Maybe we'll get a pizza. Meanwhile, because I've taken a pay-cut, too, a little extra revenue won't hurt. Visitors are hereby notified of the following changes to our fee schedule: each time you pet the cat, it's a dollar. Thank you for your patronage.

Faith and Hats
France's move toward banning religious garb is mean-spirited, foolish, even stupid, and just plain wrong. No one is protected, and only those whose faith includes precepts regarding apparel are affected, institutionalizing descrimination. It is antisemitic and anti-Muslim. France has evidently decided that democratic socialism and fascism are compatible. They aren't, and the French are likely to find out about it the hard way. Les Idiotes.

How to Keep Yourself Entertained During Lulls in the Hunt
Riding the trains or busses out to various places around town as I seek new employment, besides the newspaper I try to ensure I am well-stocked with reading matter. I got a little tired of lugging massive hardcover books around, although it is good to get back to some of these volumes after years of neglect and having to say, yes, I did read it, but I don't remember exactly what it was like, so I guess someday I'll have to re-read it, but not right now, because I'm reading something new. This led me to pull down one of the books I got during my phase of buying and reading pretty much anything Penguin published in their Contemporary American Fiction series of the mid-1980's, Paul Auster's City of Glass. In this novel, Auster writes of a psychotic father and religious scholar's attempt to discover the original, prelapsarian language of man, i.e., the language of God. Scarey, then, that later in the week, while on an excursion in Newtown, I ran across a branch of Elizabeth's Used Books and the first thing I saw was a book by Umberto Eco on exactly that subject. Perhaps, instead of North America, the new Jerusalem will end up located in this other, old new place. I'll have to think about this and 'blog about it more. It's a fun topic.

Space Odessey
As I recall, the original conception of the spaceship used in Kubrick's 2001 to send a manned mission to Jupiter included the use of atomic explosions to propel the craft, but controversy of some sort eliminated that detail. Two years later, and proposed for no earlier than a year beyond Arthur C. Clarke's sequel, 2010, a nuclear-powered Jupiter orbiter is being proposed. No HAL, no Bowman, no mysterious obelisk, though, unless there's something we're not hearing.

Down in the Root Cellar
It's a good thing for Iraq, ultimately, that Hussain has been captured at last. "A hole in a farmyard" makes his hiding place sound more degrading than a "specially outfitted root cellar" would, and I guess that's the point, much the way Bush I regularly and deliberately mispronounced the ex-dictator's name in the 1990's so it sounded like the Arabic for "shoeshine boy." It's a smug kind of political expedient, and I hate the way it's going to give Bush II an edge in November 2004, or even just a boost right now. Hussain's capture does not justify the war. It just closes a chapter in a dirty little story. I'll have to keep an eye on the reactions from the opposition candidates.

P.S., I did enjoy the description of where they're holding Hussain: in an undisclosed location. Isn't that where Cheney is?

Dept. of Full Disclosure Addendum: O.k., so he really was in a hole. The SMH reports he tried to bury himself in the floor of the root cellar.

Our Tax Dollars at Work
Colin Powell has appointed James Brown Secretary of Soul, Foreign Minister of Funk. Huh. I feel good. Yow.

SHX
After the venerable Ian Rilen's stint as the resident musician at the Surry Hills Excelsior (during which time we were able to go see Penny Ikinger for a guest appearance, Louis Tillet has taken over Sunday evenings, gathering a band and performing new material and old and generally doing a service to pub music in Sydney. We got to spend a little time chatting, as he's a long-time friend of M.'s, and we hope to see him socially soon, not to mention catching up on another Sunday, perhaps while our first international visitor is here. Louis is a terrific musician, singer-songwriter as well, with a very jazzy feel, which is a direction I'd like to see him explore further. At AU$5 a head, it's the cheapest musical outing in town, and well worth a stroll up the road.

Look What the Cat Dragged In
Yes, the link in the heading is a gratuitous plug for “Abbie the Cat Has a Posse,” but no, I’m not going to write about my own companion animal (a nervous little creature), despite the investment she represents in my daily life. Actually, this post’s title is a touch of self-referential acknowledgement that it’s been a long time between entries on the ‘blog. Well, what has there been to ‘blog about? Since my employer folded its project tent and sent me on my merry way along with a hundred others like me, I’ve been looking for work, looking for ways of looking for work, and so forth. I’ve also managed to re-read a few books I haven’t looked at in a decade or three, and there’s been enough money in the kitty to rent a video now and then, and I’ve been spending enough time at home that taking over a bit more cooking has just been natural. I’d like to lounge around the beach or out on the balcony more often than I’ve managed so far, especially with a coldie (beer) or a vodka-tonic. That it’s been raining non-stop for the last two weeks has put a crimp in those plans, as has my ingrained work ethic, a sense of self highly dependent upon having a job.

What particularly galls me is how much this period of unemployment has altered my ability to enjoy my new hometown. Sydney is a wonderful place – comments on previous posts notwithstanding (yes, we don’t have Katz’s, but there are other places, and they’re not a constant and evident breach of health codes the minute you set foot there, and no, I don’t argue for Sydney’s ranking as a place to live by its tourist population, but then we don’t get the same level of as some other places to begin with). But this is my home now and I actually do – surprise, surprise – love it, warts and all. I could take a train from the Upper East Side out to Coney, or I could take half the time on a bus and swim in pristine Pacific Ocean and loll on cigarette butt-less white sand beaches. I could cab over to the theatre district and have some second-rate Thai, or just practically step out my door here and get Asian cuisine fresher and more authentic than any I’ve ever had before. Not to mention that the beer – even the cheap stuff – is head and shoulders above anything outside of the local microbrewery anywhere in the U.S. Hah. That’ll fix you.

Look, not that anyone needs fixing so much. Well, maybe. But what do you actually know about it? My guess is that 90% of those who come here would love to come back and more than half of them would like to stay forever. I have never lived or visited an urban environment anywhere else so clean or so leisurely. The pressure’s off (or it would be if I was working) and there’s so much to enjoy. Not everyplace in the world is New York, but I don’t miss it (o.k., weirdly, I did have some strong feelings arise after watching Spike Lee’s 25th Hour, but that’s mostly because it was largely set in my old neighborhood, and Lee got the feel of the city and living there better than any movie I think I’ve ever seen before). I have a home, and it’s here, and we’re all just going to have to deal with it. But let’s all be honest, too, o.k.? You don’t have to like it; you don’t even have to visit. I do like it, and I’d love it if you want to come enjoy it with me.

Just don’t scare my cat.

Dear Sir or Madam
I know how this feels. (Another useful tidbit unearthed by the folks at Metafilter.)

Disney and the Trains
Remember that Hong Kong subway decorated with Disney characters? No, never mind, it doesn’t matter. But in case you missed it: the MTA in NYC went and joined the advertising onslaught, if only temporarily, with its theme-train entry of the Times Square-Grand Central shuttle done up with ents, hobbits, etc. All this for a DVD. I can understand if you really, really want to go ride that train: you are a geek.

PS: I can also understand if you go and ride the PATH train today: you want to commemorate the resumption of service to the World Trade Center.

I Am Matisse
O.k., the collage machine is more Colorforms(tm) than Rauchenberg (and it's for kids, but shut up), still it's pretty fun and a nicer use of Shockwave software than you'll see more often than not. So go ahead, play with the pre-set forms, pretty colors, and cut up a caper.

Memento Mori
Of the 8 designs for the WTC memorial, as much as I like the votive candles (a maintenance nightmare), my preference runs towards the outdoor designs (except the Mya Lin knock-off). Some of the indoor memorials are effective, evocative, emotive, etc., but they tend to make me feel a bit oppressed. And I'm not even a claustrophobe. Perhaps it would be different being there, and I concede a park-like setting might be less inspiring of reflection.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, Oi, Oi!
This sports-related chant will soon replace the former Number 1: "U-S-A, U-S-A . . ." following the results of a BBC poll in which Australia outranks the US for must-visit tourist destinations, particularly in ranking Sydney over New York. What else is on the list? #13 - Uluru vs. #15 - Niagra Falls; the Great Barrier Reef at #1 is ranked well above #23 - Yosemite, which is probably enough of a disparity to also account for #24 - Hawaii. If not, we'll have to find a way to get the Whitsunday's on the list. Since New Zealand should probably be part of Australia anyway, let's also add #4 - South Island to compete with #3 - Florida; #25 Aukland vs. #7 - Las Vegas (and how did they make the list anyway? It's all cigarette smoke, neon, and eyeball-drying heat). Look, I'm just pleased my new city outranks my old city, really.

Welcome to the Sydney Real Estate Market
Government sponsored housing developments here in Sydney might perhaps be the envy of those administering or living in other such projects back in the U.S., scattered as they are throughout the entire municipality, including the most desirable areas, low rise, low density (mostly - there area couple of notable exceptions around town, one of which belongs in a science fiction prison movie), and except for the cheap brick that characterizes their facade, not entirely unattractive: they could be condos (strata, as such units are known here) anywhere. And now NY: the City and State have long been chipping away at the control systems set in place to provide housing for their low- and no-income denizens, but it appears to be reaching a head, particularly with the end of Mitchell-Lama programs in the city. Sure, it's only been a 2% decrease in three years, but don't discount the effects of loosened rent control and rent stabilization on the overall pool of housing for the poor. Not to mention the effects of the Bush II imperium's economic direction. NYC housing prices are certainly steep, although San Francisco has traditionally outstripped them, but as the reins are let loose, look to see the prices rise accordingly, and before long - public housing notwithstanding here - the real estate market will be as overheated as it is here in Sydney, and without the natural amenities we have here.

Being at Bondi
This Sunday, M. and I took the Bondi-to-Bronte cliff walk, where Sydney Water sponsored the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition. It was the last day, so the walk was packed, but the sun was out, the breeze was cooling, and the sculpture - some of them at least - were pretty good. There was an inevitable bit of Christo, and some flat-out "why?" pieces, but others actually suited the environment, and these seemed to me the best of the lot. It's one thing to sculpt, but if it's for an outdoor exhibit, especially where the environment itself is so much on display, there ought to be a fit between the two. In any event, here's the NY Times getting gushy about Australia, a seasonal event, specifically with Bondi. The picture captions are backwards, by the way: Bondi Icebergs is the 2nd picture (and if you're planning a visit, plan also to stop at the bar there for a coldie, as the view is worth pausing for, as is the beer).

Watch the Watch
I've been a big fan of Madison Smartt Bell for many years, although his output can vary in quality from book to book. Washington Square Ensemble, Soldier's Joy, and his novelization of the Haitian slave uprising, All Souls Rising were terrific, but Ten Indians, the Haitian follow-up Master of the Crossroads disappointing. I was also disappointed with Doctor Sleep, but I'll have to give it another go, even if the movie that's now been made from it, Hypnotic is getting mixed-to-negative reviews. That way, I'll know if I want to see it or just have to.

La, La, La, La, La, Means I Love You
Actually, it's the sound the Bush administration is making these days to avoid hearing questions from Democrats. Yes, George II doesn't want to even hear so much as a peep from the opposition, so he's stuck his fingers in his ears. Any questions? Put them in writing and send them through the House or Senate Committee Chairperson (Republicans, for the most part) for submission. And good luck. First, he stops taking questions from the press, now he's stopped taking questions from the Legislature. Is this the Madness of King George all over again? Well, Dean's a doctor, maybe he can help.

"It's Not Us, It's Cuba"
We've got nearly a dozen non-Afghani prisoners in Guantanamo, held as enemy combatants, including a couple of Australians, whom the Supreme Court will decide can or cannot use the U.S. court system to get out of their present circumstances. The Justice Department is arguing that Cuba has jurisdiction over the U.S. military base, not the U.S., because we lease the property. So Fidel Castro should decide? Look, I understand the argument that we need to have these guys available because they're Al Qaeda-trained and may know others who trained in the terrorist camps. So when we break up a cell and arrest some suspects, they can be paraded in front of the Guantanamo prisoners for identification. That makes a certain amount of sense. Except we haven't really caught anyone else, have we? The Lackawana Six or Seven or was it only Five? That doesn't appear to have required the use of anyone in Guantanamo, and neither did those guys they picked up in the Northwest. In fact, other than actual members of the Al Qaeda hierarchy, has there been any value in holding the Brits or the Aussies? If they can make a case in court, they should be allowed to, whether military or civil. Military if they were captured with weapons, civil otherwise. But it's all supposed to be rule-of-law in America, so let the law happen. But let the lawyers work it out, and don't hide behind the razor wire.

Appropos of the Shark . . .
O.k., it's a little strange to go to the theatre when you're unemployed, but the tickets were cheap and we hadn't been out much and it was the Belvoir Theatre, whose Company B are one of the most respected theatrical troupes going, and I've never actually seen the Three Penny Opera, even though I have heard a lot of Kurt Weil in my life, including, but not limited to, the Bobby Darin rendering of "Mack the Knife." It was a good enough production, although in the end I'd have preferred if they'd avoided the common error of contemporizing the content, which was done without a full effort at relocating from Soho (London) to King's Cross (Sydney), despite the use of Australian colloquialism. This is the same group who worked on the theatrical adaptation of Cloudstreet, the celebrated epic novel by Tim Winton set in post WWII Perth, which M. and I saw at the Brooklyn Academy when their Next Wave festival featured a lot of Australiana. That was a major piece of theatre; this was just o.k. But now I know the story and have a better sense of the Brecht/Weil collaboration.

Puzzles
I must not have been thinking clearly - certainly I didn't think it through - but when I named this 'blog, I set myself up for a wealth of visitors none of whom would actually want anything to do with me or what I post here. My weblog appears to turn up in every Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. search by gamers looking for on-line crossword puzzles. I spent years filling out these word grids myself and don't fail in my estimation of their entertainment. I even grew to appreciate the variations in clue styles (and I still think the NY Times is the best, although the Sunday themes can be more than a little too obscure, a failing I share, according to some). Still, maybe I should have thought up a better title.

Talk Radio
I enjoyed having comments and Squawkbox was a good service - I particularly enjoyed the ability to ban the obstreperous and to edit out blank submissions - but if they're not going to let me continue, fine. I've gone over to the Klink Family's Blogout service, already in use by Outside Counsel, Make 1, and Berlin Blog, regular reads all. Now, remember, this commenting service doesn't include administration, so play nice.

Bye, Bye, Redbird
When I moved out of Mom & Dad's on Long Island, the best apartment I could afford was a gigantic one-bedroom in a pre-war building in Elmhurst, Queens. The Manhattan apartments in my price range, what few there were, were unrenovated pits with wavy floors, to walk upon which left one feeling distinctly drunk, and the Brooklyn units were in rather unsalubrious neighborhoods. So there I was, situated equidistant between the E/F/G line and the number 7 elevated. At first, working as I did in midtown, the 7 was the train of choice, to be supplanted in later years by the E/G when I moved employment to the Wall Street area. Shortly after moving in, the MTA declared the need to completely refurbish the entire 7 line before it collapsed into Roosevelt Avenue, and announced a 5-year moratorium on express service. It didn't matter too much to me, although the effect on Flushing residents was fairly extreme. Every morning I rode the "Redbird" into Grand Central and back again every night. These ancien regime carriages have now reached the end of the line. I know they're old and that the cars that will replace them are sleek, more efficient, even roomy (comparatively), but there are aspects of these trains that anyone would miss, and probably should, primarily among them the "wishing spot," a childhood story that claimed a place in the front car as a magical location. It was, too, if not in a fairy tale fashion. The lead car, with the motorman's compartment, was no differently constructed than any other, any car therefore capable of serving as the "engine," if you will. Each car had a doorway at either end so that passengers and crew could pass between the cars (although you weren't supposed to, especially while the train was in motion, a hazardous undertaken routinely employed by subway riders to achieve a more desirable situation, a seat, even). The lead car's front door was located next to the motorman's compartment, the door to which was sometimes left ajar, and it had a window, making it the most coveted spot of all - for subway enthusiasts and children. Many times I made it a practice to insist that out-of-town visitors stand with me in this spot. Even underground the view thus afforded was spectacular, magical. I particularly enjoyed the burst of light that occurred upon leaving the tunnel and arriving at the Grand Central platform, but also the expansiveness that lightened my heart once we left Hunters Point for the elevated tracks through Queens. There was also the little thrill of seeing the rise and fall and gentle curves of the track ahead once Queens Plaza had been left behind, and the suddenly looming presence of Shea Stadium as you approached Willets Point. There will be windows in the new trains, but not that front one, so no more wishing spot and a forever altered commutation, one that lacks the communion with the trains themselves.

Eh? Speak Up, Sonny, I'm a Little Deaf
Comments by Squawkbox have expired. They said I had until May next year, but that appears to have come sooner than I expected somehow. And there I thought Daylight Saving meant only 16 hours difference between here and the Northern Hemisphere. I had considered upgrading, although I'm unemployed and can't afford it, but now I'll just have to consider finding a new service. Meanwhile, if you don't have something nice to say, you have to say nothing at all. (O.k., fine, yes, you can always email.)

Dullness and Depression
Not working has got to be the most consistently dull situation of all. A boring job would be less dull than the tediousness of looking at the same jobs advertised week after week after day after day, not to mention the depression of not getting any of them (sorry, so many candidates - and you're not one of them). Sure, I could sit around and watch t.v. all day; I could even watch endless videos if I had the income to support the rental volume required. I am reading "Look Homeward, Angel," and that will take up a bit of intellectual effort and the time dripping through my fingers, but I think more is needed for a fulfilling life than catching up on re-reading my entire library. Unfortunately, blogging doesn't seem to pay (not that I have a large enough audience to even warrant sticking a Paypal account link here). Perhaps I should learn a musical instrument. Recorders are probably pretty inexpensive. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat . . . now I know I'm losing it.

Hands Across the Waters
I've added Expats Against Bush to my weblog community block, although I'm not technically an expat myself. It seems worthwhile, however, to remind and provide a resource for expats who may come here that Bush II is bad for America in the world at large and there are others out there - a support group of a kind.

Years
I don’t know how I missed it, although the flu may have had an effect, but it’s been a year since I moved to Sydney. A lot has happened: M.’s grandfather, Johnny, died, we got a new apartment, I got a job and the job dried up and blew away. . . . A year’s a long time, although it doesn’t seem so when you look back at it. When I think of all the years yet to come, depending on the perspective I bring to it, the next twenty can seem short or long, but I know that there will be a lot happening in the future that will affect me (even more that won’t), and I know that as each year passes I’ll look back on it and wonder where the time all went to. It’ll probably be a while yet before I have an Australian accent, but.

Have a Copy of Argosy While You Wait
When Bush II was still just the dauphin, running for office against Gore, I lived in fear the country would be stupid enough to elect him. It was a very close thing, close enough that he did become President. Even at my far remove geographically from the incipient race of ’04, I take great interest in the Democratic doings, particularly those of Dean, Kerry, and Edwards. I don’t put much stock in Gephardt, and none in Mosely-Braun or Sharpton or the little UFOlogist, but the others look like the contenders needed to unseat the usurper, so I’m keeping my eye on them. I was put on to Edwards by an article in the New Yorker, and I still find him a viable candidate for all his campaign’s lack of momentum, such as that enjoyed by Dean. David Brooks’ op-ed piece in the NY Times points out a failing in my party that I think Dean ought to look at, but probably won’t. Although Gore had the election stolen by the Supremes, and arguably Bush won in the Electoral College, the popular vote is what swings these events if you have the real numbers – not a few hundred or a thousand in Florida, but the big numbers in the fly-over states. Edwards’ campaign may have the appeal in those places more than Dean’s, but if the doctor could get in with Floyd the barber just as well. It also makes me think of Flannery O’Connor stories, but that’s a fear with a slightly different source, so we’ll let that pass for now.

350 Covers and Beyond
Back in the day, when Outside Counsel and The Knitter were living in Brooklyn, Smith Street wasn’t much of a place one wanted to be after dark, neither was it noted for the culinary arts, despite the corner grocery with the fresh smoked mozzarella. For the past few years, this area has been coming up, by all food critic accounts, and suddenly, it’s got the best restaurant in town. Statistically, anyway, and we all know about statistics.

Provocation
When you are a professional athlete – even a baseball player (they’re more athletic than they often appear) – you have an obligation to conduct yourself with non-athletes with physical restraint. You are likely to be stronger, and unless your sport is boxing, fighting isn’t what you’re employed to do anyway. If anything marred the post-season this year, it was the conduct of the Yankees and Red Sox in the playoffs. Beanings are “part of baseball” (fatuous – there’s no need to throw at anyone’s head), but brawling with the grounds crew? It’s only right that the police charge Jeff Nelson and Karim Garcia. They’re not children that some taunts from a guy with a rake should send them into such a fury.

Laid Off, Laid Out, Lay About
While the job search continues (if not apace or aplenty, it is yet afoot), M. and I spent last week down with more ‘flu than seems absolutely necessary, so when we could muster the strength to do so, we’d gather a few videos in and spend our sick time on a film festival of sorts: Zelig plus Sweet and Lowdown, both of which I’ve seen (S&L with M.), but which share the false documentary stylings of Woody Allen, which can be entertaining indeed and which I think make S&L a better movie than it would have been otherwise. We also watched Punch Drunk Love, the touted Paul Thomas Anderson movie with Adam Sandler. I think it was touted because Sandler’s movies are usually unwatchable and the role was a significant departure for him – call it the Jim Carrey/Truman Show effect. PDL was very pretty, even poetic, but not a great filmic experience.

Now that M. & I are back on our feet, time is spent in productive pursuits – at least from an income perspective, we hope so.

Flu
Blah. Whole household. Except the cat. Bad timing. Job search ongoing. Maybe tomorrow.

The Government You Deserve
Schwarzenegger is Governor of California. If Pumping Iron is any indicator – and not his fictional roles (Hercules in NY, Conan, etc.) – then I suppose politically he might be quite an adept operator. As for effective governance, Outside Counsel is probably correct in that Arnold will be the front man to a group of pros. But I don’t expect to see any positive results, really, because the man’s a Republican and bills himself as a businessman. That’s the same profile GWB uses.

Which Way the Wind Blows
Last night our friend George stopped by on his way to the cinema and we ended up making a night out of it, getting some lovely Thai stir-fries and being among all of ten people tops at the early evening showing of The Weather Underground, a new documentary on the SDS radicals who attempted to "bring the war home" and include America in the perceived world revolution going on during 1969-75. Along with the cringe-inducing exploration of the state-sponsored repression of dissent in the U.S. at the time - more than sometimes violent, and including the use of police as de facto death squads - and the ludicrous rhetoric of the far left movement, the movie also manages to allow a real understanding of the kind of ethical dilemmas faced by these individuals. How do you allow your country, a democratic nation founded essentially on the principle that the government represents the people, acts on their behalf - how do you allow that country to perpetrate and persist in an unjust war? And how, then, do you act, if you want to ensure that war is ended? Can you not be a participant in the violence if you do not act out? Especially frightening is listening to Nixon stand firm against the many hundreds of thousands protesting his policies and actions in Vietnam and Southeast Asia with exactly the same words and determination Bush II uses today defending his policies and actions in Iraq. We may not need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows, as the Dylan song goes that gave these radicals their name, but maybe we need a little of the determination of the Weathermen to get us into the streets again. Without the pipe bombs, of course.

Careering
Part of the cost of terminating the project I was working on was for the company to hire an outplacement firm to counsel all the redundant staff. I get a lovely little portfolio, essentially unlimited internet time, a copier and fax machine and printer - all the amenities. I'm not sure but I'd rather they spent the money by handing me more cash, but I'm not particularly hopeful they'd have done it, so I'll take what I can get. Outplacement is another of those terms that don't seem to quite fit with what they mean. In this case, I'm already "out" and looking for placement elsewhere, and the service provided is largely a do-it-yourself program. We make the best of these things. I can dress down all the time now, for example. It's not much, but at least I'm comfortable. And as for becoming a jackaroo, as has been suggested, well if some molly-coddle British royal can do it, so can I! Yippie-yi-yo.

Suit and Tie
If nothing else, I get to forego the corporate uniform for a while. Actually, it was kind of interesting to observe the cultural shift moving from the Soho-based publisher in NYC to the global behemoth in the Sydney suburbs, in that a suit was mandatory. Turns out that was the influence of the South African military-trained project director more than anything else, and when he was gone, the ties mostly went, too. Nevertheless, now that I'm spending time in Martin Place, kind of the heart of the CBD, I see that the standard is very broad indeed, if not quite so liberal as extended to Soho. Next up: a beer on the balcony.

Redundant
I've never quite understood the British usage of this word. To me, redundant means extra, superfluous, duplicative. When an employee is made redundant, however, it isn't because the company's hired someone else to do that job (ostensibly, although I'm sure it happens), but rather that the job itself is eliminated, usually along with a few others. Not by computers, mind you, which don't actually replace workers as displace them, similar to the effect computers have had on office paper production (which was to increase it dramatically). Similarly, "retrenched" - what does that mean? If there are meant to be connotations with trench warfare, wouldn't a worker be retrenched by moving them from one job to another, that is, moving them from one trench to another? It doesn't matter, I guess, so long as you get your redundancy payout. And I'm still out of a job. Well, at least I can still say I've never been fired, since technically I've been "let go." (As if they could have stopped me, given half a chance - never mind, I'm being bitter.) Well, there's some benefit in having survived the past four months since the first layoffs, in that most of them will have gotten jobs by now, so I don't face quite as much competition as I would have. Meanwhile, once I've got a few resumes out the door, this looks like a good time to preview the beach. Perhaps tomorrow while I'm out and about papering my resume around the CBD, I'll stop and get a cheap Eski (n.b. to non-Australian readers: think about the abbreviation, and it will come clear. Yes, Eskimo, so ice, and therefore cooler. It all makes sense, doesn't it?).

Swans on the Grass, Alas
For all the time I spent out by the Olympic Park when I first started working, I didn’t make much effort to walk around and see it. For the most part, the grounds are dominated by the (now) Telstra Stadium, a gigantic venue holding about 80,000. So Saturday night was a bit of a tourist venture as well as an opportunity to attend the Swans bid to go to the Grand Finals of Aussie Rules football. Only 71,000 were in attendance, but even at that it was quite a crowd, with quite a lot of red-and-white on display. (I have to give the Park designers some credit, as well as to the overall Aussie character, in that everyone proceeded in and out along the roadways and parking garages smoothly and efficiently.) The field of play is significantly larger than the Swans home field at the Sydney Cricket Grounds, but unlike American “gridiron,” the goal posts are set at the ends of the oval regardless of its size. This may have been a factor in the humiliating loss the Swans suffered at the hands of the Brisbane Lions. Sure, I enjoyed the game, and I don’t have the dilemma of being asked if I’d like to buy a ticket for the Grand Final (which would have been expensive as well as hard to resist), but it was too bad they didn’t win. The Lions, with the assistance of what appeared to be some pretty dodgy calls in the first quarter, handled the ball very well indeed, especially in the air, while Sydney never managed their air game well at all, except perhaps in the third quarter, where they overcame a significant deficit, only to lose it all again and more in the 4th. Their ground game, where AFL is at its least effective from what I can see, was spent mostly on the bottom of a tackle. I figure the week off they had put Sydney at an over-rested disadvantage, which combined with Brisbane’s squad of veteran players probably meant the outcome was never as much in doubt as I’d gone in thinking.

It’s a (Too) Small World
If the Disneyification of NYC had continued just a little longer – and it might yet – the subways could have looked quite a bit different than the current model. An interesting example of psychological torture, or an attempt to pre-empt the graffiti taggers? (Thanks, Big White Guy.)

Eisenhower
There have been only a few career military men in the White House (right now occupied by a hot dogging National Guard AWOL), so the entry of Wesley Clark into the Democratic candidates line-up is an interesting development beyond the fact that it increases the field to an unwieldy 10 potentials. But what does it mean, and is he any good? From where I sit (on the other side of the planet, looking forward to a visit to the embassy next November – no, not really, just an absentee ballot), Dean’s looked like the man to beat. Clark’s hat in the ring seems to reduce Deans’ chances, potentially making better candidates out of Kerry and Edwards, hopefully making it all the move obvious what a bad choice that creep Lieberman would be. There’s also been a good deal of vibe about a Dean-Clark ticket, and I could see that, but only just as much as I can see any of the others doing the same thing. I wonder if a Clark-Dean ticket would be more than just alphabetical?

Correction
I really ought to look at this thing more often to see if it's working as expected. Here I saw this great new Blogger feature, a field to enter a title on each post, which was added to the "featureless" product following the elimination of the fee-based Blogger-Pro. No more formatting a headline to my posts, just type and go. Well, it turns out not to be so. I'm not sure what the point of this feature is, and I'm not using it. In fact, I've gone back over the week's posts and added back the headlines that were sitting in the title field, uselessly. I ought to move to a new 'blogging medium, but look what happened to Outside Counsel after he started threatening such a change.

Can’t Get Enough of Politics
The DNC is running a weblog, just in case you are so addicted to reading these things that you’ll even follow the content posted by a faceless political organization. The GOP apparently eschews such plebeian technological usages.

Blue Skies, 25? C
If there’s a rainy season here, I must have missed it. Meanwhile, back in NYC, they’re expecting 60 mph winds and lotsa rain. Looks like it missed M&P, at least the center, anyway.

Arr
Ahoy, ye lubbers, today be Talk Like a Pirate Day. Drink and the devil have done for the rest.

Genie: Well and Truly Out
Iraq wanted them, Iran’s working on it, Pakistan and India threaten each other with them, North Korea gleefully pursues the capability, and now Saudi Arabia is considering the option of building their own nuclear weapons program. Can I blame Bush for this, too?

Apply Patch, Buff with Turtle Wax™
A nice story of people helping an animal who ran afoul of technology, by using an ancillary technology: auto body shop mechanics repaired the damaged shell of a snapping turtle hit by a car. Kinda like that Star Trek episode: I’m a Doctor, not a bricklayer! or in this case, I’m a panel-beater, not a vet!

I’ve Looked at Clouds
And snow-capped mountains and volcanic craters and . . . all from 300 miles up. Spectacular photos from space.

Back for Your Legal Opinion Needs, et al.
Now that Outside Counsel’s back, if not complete with archives, I can look forward to some thoughtful content (I even enjoy the law-related posts) and useful links, like this one, to an archive of Wire’s “100 Records That Shook the World (When No One Was Listening)”, which includes all of three records I actually own, references to another dozen or so by artists I’ve heard of, and many more that appeal to my collecting urge, an aspect, I suppose, of having a 17% geek quotient.

Quiet, Kept to Itself
How does someone get killed by a tree? I wouldn’t have thought that it wasn’t possible to get out of the way of a tree falling over in the forest – you’d have to have heard it coming, unless they don’t make any sound! There goes that Zen koan. I wonder if this means I’m a butterfly?

Lab Fees
Because I did my degrees in Literature, I was pretty much more than happy to buy my text books and keep them forever, and the cost never exceeded list price anyway. But most actual text books, the kind you buy for Economics 101 or Biology of the Cell or whatever, are very high priced items indeed, and apparently that cost is rising year by year. I’ve had some experience in this, and I didn’t keep any of those books, not surprisingly, since they go through frequent revisions, at least one purpose of which appears to be to ensure a revenue stream to the publisher, who would otherwise see very little return on the investment, largely because these are not books that have a market outside the university system, often only even the university at which the professor who wrote the thing is working. It always seemed a little suspect when the course text was written by the course professor (or worse, his personal friend), but I realize that’s probably an extreme reaction. It does seem to me, however, that since the professor is teaching from what he or she has learned from primary sources, one of the things I’m supposed to learn is how to understand those sources myself, so to use a text that essentially summarizes the source material in parallel to the instruction provided during class hours – well, I wonder if I come away with everything I should. It’s very expensive to run a college, and expensive to attend even a mediocre one, so I have to wonder if there isn’t some way universities could manage their budgets and material requirements in such a way as to improve affordability? Perhaps ensuring that professors have scanning equipment and a CD-burner so as to create course-packs of supplementary material (riding under the copyright threshold)? Working out a deal with major publishers to create a university-use-only imprint of required texts? A little innovation might go a long way. (No word from Smith, where an Ivy-leaguer of my acquaintance has just started, but I’ll bet books are pricey. Perhaps she’s making good use of her parents’ extensive and varied library?)

Fallen Idol Infrastructure
When the US won the women’s soccer World Cup for the first time in 1991, the country went absolutely soccer-mad. Now the WUSA has folded, and no one knows if it can be revived. Soccer has never been much of a sport in America, but this is a real shame. It’s not entirely unexpected – not even Pele could save men’s soccer in the U.S., so what hope did Mia Hamm have? Still, it’s surprising, if only because of all those kids I’ve seen playing the game year after year. More than any other, soccer is a global sport, and in these days of multinational corporations, it is reasonable to expect the kind of funding necessary to maintain a national league. I guess there are only so many stadiums, so much television air time, so many fans, and none of them enough in the end.

Summer's Over
At least in NYC, so the Flash Mob phenomenon has been officially laid to rest. Sure, there will still be mobs, although maybe only the less-than-good-natured ones seen at WTO meetings, but “Bill’s” mobs are over. I suppose I knew that once they were co-opted as a political joke in Doonesbury. The second Sydney mob sounds like it was just as fun as the first one, and now that we’re heading into summer, I wonder if there will be more? There doesn’t seem to have been much from Europe lately, so maybe the mobilization power of cell phone-internet combination has been sufficiently demonstrated.

The Sunburnt Country
Melbourne is looking to enact permanent water restrictions, and I don’t imagine Sydney will be very far behind. Even though the El Niño system has dissipated for now, the effect won’t be truly felt for another year or more, after which we’ll be building towards the next one. Drought, it appears, is to be a constant. I’d venture to suggest, however, that drought can be managed in Australia, although it will take a significant and fairly long-term effort towards behavioral changes from city residents refraining from hosing the pavement, to suburbanites foregoing non-native lawns and shrubs, to farmers relinquishing the use of European traditional agricultural practices. I’d like to see apartment blocks, including mine, install a rainwater tank to support their fire suppression systems, for one example, but perhaps that’s the zealotry of the converted.

Hugo Redux?
Back in ’89, hurricane Hugo hit the Carolinas, and messed up a swath of coastline for some miles inland from Charleston, South Carolina all the way up into Brunswick County on into Charlotte, North Carolina. In the next three days, Isabel may do the same. Warnings to stock up on flashlights and batteries and bottled water are being issued along the Eastern Seaboard as far north as NYC and New England. Even Canada’s getting nervous, and no wonder, as the storm has hit category 5 a couple of times already, before easing off a little. It’s just as well I’m in Sydney, I suppose, since I didn’t much care for what little hurricane blow-by I got myself over the years. Mom and Dad are enjoined to supply email to good effect over the coming days, situated in the crosshairs as they are.

Does QUIRO™ Dream of Electric Sheep?
O.k., it’s just a robot. When will it be a replicant, and run for office.

90
Way out in the west yesterday, for M.’s grandmother’s 90th birthday party. The cousin hosting lives in a nice cliff-side home overlooking some national parkland, in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. No sign of wildlife, for all the rumors of the black panther haunting the neighborhood. (Well, he’s been there for 30 years, so he probably doesn’t get around much anymore.) In any event, it was a nice time with all the family around, although it’s a mighty long trek there and back. G. got lots of nice pressies and quite enjoyed the event.

Eenie, Meenie . . .
7 pages of candidates on the California recall ballot. Aside from the unqualified actors running, other celebrities include Larry Flynt, the pornographer and First Amendment activist, and Angelyne, the self-promoting billboard pin-up. I still favor Georgy Russell, but only because no one I personally know is running.

Totem
Every culture develops a concept of totemic animals, often hierarchical (hence the totem poles of the Pacific Northwest). This is not something that has passed away or been superseded by some more “enlightened” point of view vis a vis man’s relationship to the rest of the natural world: Russia’s relationship with bears, America’s with the bald eagle, and so forth, are the direct descendents of this ancient tradition. Here in Australia, Aboriginal tribal structure is based on “dreamings,” which have a direct relationship to the animals of this place, and the relationship between the creation beings of the Dreamtime as represented by those animals. Thus a tribe might be the “kangaroo dreaming” or “goanna dreaming” clan, bearing their own relationship to the animals and places. Individuals will also have their own personal totem animal, as North American’s are familiar with from the culture of Native Americans. It’s all very hard to describe, but where all this is leading is that although as a person of European ancestral origin I should probably have to accept “rabbit dreaming” or “cane toad dreaming” if such an option were actually open to me, I would prefer “platypus dreaming.” I’ve always loved these animals, and after watching a documentary on them, feel all the more compelled now that I’m here to see one in the wild. It’s my latest Australian mission.

’Til Death Do Them Part
You have to admire the kind of commitment exhibited by Sally Baron: even in death, she seeks the removal of Bush II. This is the kind of final request I think deserves to be honored. Rest in Peace, Sally Baron: Defeat Bush in ‘04.

Food Products
There are many comestibles that are not food, but we eat them anyway and even express a preference for them over other actual food. Cheez Doodles™, Twinkies™, Pringles™, etc. are not food; that’s why they have a trademark. Real food, however, has also been subjected to the forces of marketing, and that’s why Red Delicious apples don’t taste the way they did once and why tomatoes are but pale imitations of what once they were. Some will have you believe that it is the force of consumer demand that has brought us to this sorry pass, but don’t you believe it. If the tomatoes on your sandwich are pale and mealy, it’s because it’s easier for corporate growers to produce such lacklustre produce. That’s why in better restaurants now you’ll see “heirloom” tomatoes on the menu (which I’m here to tell you are fantastic – I’ve got to get some seeds). Pass the ketchup.

Reckoning
Two years ago I stood on a roof in Soho and watched the World Trade Center towers burn about a mile and half south. Within minutes of seeing the explosion of the second plane strike I was heading uptown on foot towards 34th Street and Madison Avenue, where my wife was working at the time, in the now ominous shadow of the Empire State Building. While there was no lack of news from overheard cell phone conversations and a balancing satisfaction in seeing the fighter jets mobilized overhead, only my purpose – get M. and get home – gave me any reason not to be afraid.

But call it the Tel Aviv Syndrome if you want to put a name to it: I am not afraid, as it turns out. Like the citizens of that city under siege, I acknowledge that there are no geographical limits on terrorism and I live with it, calmly. Is that resignation or complacency?

I grew up in the shadow of the H bomb deluge promised by the Cold War, with airline hijackings taking place regularly, and the Munich Olympics massacre, but I wasn’t afraid. I saw the Berlin Wall come down and briefly thought politically motivated mass death might become a thing of the past, but lived for a year one to two levels down from imminent attack, and yet John Ashcroft’s color-coded alerts did not instill fear in me, neither did I tremble when Tom Ridge came on television for a press conference, despite his apparent incapacity to perform the radical restructuring of law enforcement and intelligence gathering with which he is charged.

I did then and still do experience a sinking feeling whenever George Bush speaks, especially when he issues childish taunts and dares or otherwise indulges his authoritarian bloodlust, or when that grinning death’s head, Condoleeza Rice, is treated as an expert on anything current in the world. There is a different root to these reactions, however, than they would have me acknowledge.

I’m not in America – I moved to Australia about a month after the first anniversary of the WTC atrocities (coincidentally flying just the day after another radical Islamic terror group struck in Bali) – and some might suggest this is a factor in my calm. Perhaps it is, even though Australia is a partner to the U.S. in the Iraq adventure, and its conduct there and previously in East Timor has brought it the attention of Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah. John Howard and his Defense Minister, Robert Hill, tell me that Australia is a target, that a terrorist attack is certain – “a question of when, not if,” using the same phrase as is heard every day in America – but I don’t believe them, not the way they would like.

I don’t believe Bush, Howard, Ashcroft . . . any of them. I don’t believe the tapes from Al Qaeda. They seek to inspire fear, but they only inspire derision and disgust.

I know that there are those who would harm me, and I know that I am weak. I’m still not afraid. Once the world was a much bigger place and the threats against me smaller, because they lived in my neighborhood, but the world is smaller now and the threats more numerous and just as immediate. Still, I know that when I hear of new security alerts that there are more intentions at work than appear on the surface and that actually I’m quite safe – just as safe as I was before the 11th of September, 2001.

Bush and his ilk want me to be afraid so I will allow them to keep their power and privilege; they have no true concern for me. Osama bin Laden and the like-minded disciples of hate want me to be afraid so that I will cede my soul into their hands. But I know now and have always understood that the contempt and the hatred such people have for all who are not them are the greater threat to me and the rest of the world than the death and degradation they pursue. The suffering of others is as often an end as a means to these people, as it has been over the ages. When the Roman legions salted the earth of razed Carthage their action was no different than that of three dozen murderers flying their stolen planes into buildings, neither was it different from the pursuit of “tactical” nuclear weapons or stockpiling anthrax.

The examples of wealth and power begetting hate and destruction are rife through history. With each new episode we say, that was the past, the future will be different. But the past continues to rise up before us and assert its own power, one which is exerted over everyone who refuses to learn its lessons.

We cannot beat the past into submission, but we can draw those who would remain mired there into the future with us if we try hard enough. If they won’t come, let them will pass into history as others have before them by their own failure, their failure to embrace the world beyond some petty power base or short term gain. If we are truly now more aware of the world outside, we can use that to our advantage and move forward into the future with the boldness the situation requires. We can spend billions to reconstruct what we have destroyed or we can elect not to destroy in the first place and spend our dollars raising the low up, building lives instead of taking them. Two years ago I was in the midst of improving my life, and today I still am.

(See also: TNL.net's "Who were you" project.)

Cheesy Robots
I’m taking an early mark every day next week so I can be sure to get home in time for Dr. Who on the ABC. They’re starting from the very beginning, with Dr. Who battling the evil Daleks, the most inane alien robots ever devised. But evil.

www.Satan.com
The devil has a website, where you can get a quote on the value of your soul. I came in at a disappointing AUD $38,495 ($59,115 US). If I didn’t rent videos at Blockbuster, I’m sure I might have done better. Thank God I don't drive an SUV.

Buena Vista
Can we please get past the issue of whether Cuba is communist or not? Every time it seems like the U.S. is going to make an effort, something messes it up. The embargo has been in place for 40 years and that’s probably 39 years more than was necessary. Certainly the fall of the Soviet Union should have allowed us to develop an entente cordiale with Fidel, not to his benefit necessarily, but certainly to the benefit of Cubans overall.

In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Moan
Yes, I stole that, but I’m keeping it, because it seems appropriate to the story about sound waves from a black hole. I don’t really get this, because I thought that black holes are supposed to be so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull – so how does sound? (Can it be the giant sucking sound Ross Perot promised us?) And if the sound is making the interstellar gasses out there warmer, should I pump up the bass on my stereo in winter instead of ratcheting up the thermostat? I should give up on physics now while I still can.

”. . . And Anything Else”
Why is the Patriot Act bad and why does any extension seem so wrong? Well, Slate has been running a series on the contents of the existing Act and what effect they have. A particular aspect of the law’s language that scares me is the use of the phrase “and anything else” in delineating what law enforcement may seize or search (all on a pretextual claim before a secret court). Shouldn’t laws be a little more specific than this?

Americana
I realized over the weekend that although I have a copy, I’ve never read J. P. Marquand’s novel H. M. Pulham, Esq., and since I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the conduct of living, Marquand is probably among the foremost authors to read for an understanding of how this has and has not evolved. Pulham, which I’m about halfway through, is a portrait of a particular class in a peculiar era on its surface, but because it documents a life and a society on the cusp of change and having already seen enough of change. It also exerts a degree of insight that remains useful now. Although the late ‘thirties are certainly Modern, the Postmodern world is underway, so watching Henry Pulham pass away, so to speak, you are not left wondering how his contemporaries manage to stay afloat, but if their awareness does not destroy them all the more thoroughly than H. M.’s dawning understanding will spoil him for the coming age, since they, too, are lost, despite their efforts. Looking back over my own lifetime, what little there is so far, I see the changes that have gone on around me and that have happened to me, and I wonder if every generation is the Lost Generation.

The Public and Public Transportation
Commuter services always cry poor, because they have to spend the money they receive on keeping up and improving services instead of keeping it themselves. Yes, there is a government subsidy, and yes, it is an investment in mass transit over private vehicles. But the arguments presented to change the fare structure don’t really make sense. Persons with a low income buy single, full-fare tickets, and middle to high income persons buy weekly or even quarterly periodic tickets, which are discounted. Why is this so? Because middle and high income persons can afford to shell out a larger sum of money at one time than poor people can. A poor person who puts down $30 a week has the perceived disadvantage of not having some part of that sum to spend on daily necessities, while the higher wage earners can make it part of their budget. It is much more difficult for someone earning a marginal wage to even have a budget, let alone live by it. So how do you make fares fair? Do you remove the incentive for the middle class to use public transportation by raising periodic fare rates? That doesn’t actually help anyone, does it? You’re not going to discount the single fare ticket, are you? Instead, everyone pays the full rate and the subsidy goes away and nobody who can afford it takes the train anymore because it just got cheaper to use your own car and to hell with everybody else. Traffic gets worse, pollution increases, the rail system crumbles (more), and before long it’s L.A. and it will be decades before you can fix it. The way to fix the system is to invest in it: upgrade the tracks and trains and build more lines with more connections; clean up the graffiti while you’re at it. This can be done with the subsidy still in place. The CityRail executives will just have to defer getting richer.

Press on Press
Andrew Denton had Helen Thomas on his show last night. Enough Rope is probably the best interview show on television in Australia, not just because Denton is a capable interviewer (he does ask the fluff, promotion-related questions, but also poses tougher, more insightful queries), but also because he gets more interesting guests than the shows on the commercial stations. Helen Thomas is the longest serving member of the White House Press Corp, and she doesn’t shy away from asking tough questions of every President since Kennedy. As a result, Bush II and his minions don’t call on her and make sure she’s stuck up the back of the conference room for the briefings they hold (fewer than any other administration). This is disrespectful and childish, but what else can you expect? They are afraid they will be caught in their lies. Too late, of course. I hope Ms. Thomas will get another, different administration to ask pointed questions of in 2005.