Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Australians’ 2022 views on taxation – and on taxation “reform” – are “informed” by a confusing array of truths, lies, twaddle, insight, credulity, chicanery, chutzpah, self-interested opportunism (sometimes naked, sometimes disguised) , rank hypocrisy, timidity, virtue-signalling, obfuscation, indifference, compassion, cruelty, ignorance, knowledge, and honest uncertainty.
The featured image is (Jon) Kudlelka’s cartoon for the 08 October 2022 edition of The Saturday Paper
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As Pelican Yoga regulars already know, I generally prefer wild places, wild animals and plants, untamed, “in the wild”/ au naturel.
That said, I would never wish to forgo the pleasures afforded by exotic plants, as cultivated in both “Botanic” and domestic gardens.
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Did the brilliant winter sun bring out Cottesloe’s “philosopher king”?
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Looking at the ground right in front of your feet can offer surprising rewards, even when your feet are trudging along urban, paved surfaces.
Especially when a decent amount of rain has recently fallen, such “dead” zones can be surprisingly alive, not endlessly-grey.
Comments closedThe opening couplet from Guy Clark’s “Old Time Feeling”:
And that old time feelin’ goes sneakin’ down the hall
Like an old grey cat in winter, keepin’ close to the wall
As it happens, just a few days after the recent winter solstice, I happened upon an old grey cat who was keeping close to a wall…but, more crucially, taking advantage of the steps in front of it.
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…are all integral to this post, which is a sequel to both the immediately-preceding one and to the 28 January 2022 post on “Hope”.
If you do not already know Emily Dickinson’s poem Hope is The Thing With Feathers you should click here before you read/see/listen to the rest of this post.
Comments closedWhilst I hope you enjoy the photo, it is really here to alert you to a beautiful, quietly surprising “live” performance of Andrea Keller’s Broken Reflection.
The photo was taken in a forest glade in the USA’s Pacific Northwest; the music is Australian.
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Unsurprisingly, a deal of Perth’s abundant street art celebrates Western Australia’s own extraordinary flora and fauna.
Thanks to sculptors and muralists, you can see kangaroos in the CBD’s main thoroughfare, endangered cockatoos vividly adorn more than a few walls and fences, and oversized orchids, kangaroo paws and banksias “bloom” on others.
Near to the South Perth foreshore’s colossal frill-necked lizard and numbat, proudly stands a singular, much more elaborate metal sculpture.
It was made in the WA wheatbelt, but depicts – anatomically correctly – an “iconic” African animal.
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When an Australian thinks of seagulls, the relevant species is almost certainly our most common, emblematic one.
Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae – the Silver gull – has prospered mightily, post-1788.
Arguably, this highly-adaptable bird should no longer be described as a “seagull”.
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This post’s headline is the name of an excellent, albeit US-centric & Western “pop”-centric, article by Ted Gioia.
As he notes:
The song catalogs in most demand are by musicians who are in their 70s or 80s (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen) or already dead (David Bowie, James Brown).
This post’s photo is a reminder that in 2022 the “Music Biz” also resolutely ignores much of the world’s remarkable “old” music…
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