Pelican Yoga

Altered states – suburban moments.

Published August 18, 2021 by Pelidoug

Photographically speaking, Pelican Yoga – whether at home or interstate/abroad – generally inclines to wild places and/or to plants and animals that naturally occur in the relevant locations.

This post is an exception.

Its photos were taken over the last several years in assorted, “not especially remarkable” locations within the Perth metropolitan area.

In every case, I was standing on a paved or “sealed” surface.

All key species pictured are “strangers”, present only via humans having introduced them to southwest Western Australia, post-1829.

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Revelatory Covers (#21 in series – special bumper edition)

Published August 9, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory Covers (#21 in series – special bumper edition)

This post includes my favourite cover of a wistful, very famous Johnny Cash song, and a singular version of a less famous, more urgent song, authored by Stuart Adamson.

Both are “live” performances.

Darrell Scott is their American singer-guitarist, Danny Thompson their English double bassist.

And that’s not all…

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Unique flora, vertebrate pollinators…and “good” tax policy

Published August 3, 2021 by Pelidoug

Unique flora, vertebrate pollinators…and “good” tax policy

Southwest Western Australia’s flowering, feathered and furry members of the first two categories need each other, vitally.

Could their survival prospects have anything to do with the third category?

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The “aw shucks, us too” taxation policy now adopted by the ALP strains beyond breaking point any reasonable definition of “alternative government”…or “Opposition”…or “Labor”…or “progressive”. Alas, many fewer words than those in this verbose header are more than enough to say everything that needs to be said about it…

Published July 31, 2021 by Pelidoug

…as Jon Kudelka has demonstrated in today’s edition of The Saturday Paper:

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Carnaby’s streets

Published July 25, 2021 by Pelidoug

Carnaby’s streets

Our planet has just two white-tailed black cockatoo species.

Both are endangered, and their only “home” is in southwest Western Australia.

My beloved and I live within a very few minutes flying time of the centre of this region’s one metropolis.

For some months of every year, we see and hear one of those two species almost every day – on most days, more than once.

All photos were taken in Blencowe St, West Leederville

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Winter light, 2021 (in the Australian Perth)

Published July 18, 2021 by Pelidoug

Winter light, 2021 (in the Australian Perth)

All photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken on recent walks on local streets and footpaths.

The lovely, spacious musical bonus comes from the northern hemisphere…

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Word power: Kathryn Schulz on “the Misanthropocene”

Published July 12, 2021 by Pelidoug

Word power: Kathryn Schulz on “the Misanthropocene”

Kathryn Schulz’s superb essay is called What Do We Hope to Find When We Look for a Snow Leopard?

Although not primarily about snow leopards, it particularly refers to a 1978 “classic” – Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard – and to a recently-published book by a Parisian who also pursued an ardent desire to encounter a snow leopard, on “the roof of the world”.

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Word power: “the Billy Joel of Australian politics”

Published July 7, 2021 by Pelidoug

Word power: “the Billy Joel of Australian politics”

Did I stumble upon his/their avatar in a Tibetan Plateau marketplace?

Peter Lewis’s essay is an amusing and perceptive look at “Scotty”and Billy, as fellow “masters of pastiche”.

Morrison doesn’t even pretend to try to build his own coherent body of work. It’s not that he can’t come up with a tune. Far from it, there is a ditty for every occasion. It’s just that it’s not leading us anywhere.

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Revelatory covers (#20 in series): “I’ll Be Seeing You”, sans words, but really singing…

Published July 5, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory covers (#20 in series): “I’ll Be Seeing You”, sans words, but really singing…

Arguably the quintessential nostalgic song, I’ll Be Seeing You was composed in 1938. (music by Sammy Fain, words by Irving Kahal)

That year it was inserted into a Broadway musical…which flopped.

The song, however, became a “standard”, covered by countless singers…and not a few instrumentalists.

It was a #1 hit for Bing Crosby in 1944.

Frank Sinatra recorded it more than once.

Even Eric Clapton did so, in 2016.

The most celebrated recording – Billie Holiday’s 1944 version – is the one which reached Mars in 2018, as the conclusion to NASA’s final transmission to its Explorer rover.

However, the most “out of this world” version to reach this Earthling’s ears is a “live” and exploratory instrumental trio treatment, delivered in “the city of fallen angels”, in June 2016.

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Mallees in May

Published June 29, 2021 by Pelidoug

Mallees in May

Most mallee species are eucalypts, and more than half of Eucalyptus species are mallees.

Their generally modest height and oft-“untidy”/“shaggy” appearance blind some people to mallees’ beauty, their great diversity, and their oft-astonishing buds and flowers.

As with so many Australian species, the closer you look, the more spectacular, surprising and glorious they are.

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