When the news came to me last week that Santo Cazzatti had died, I could barely believe it. I had seen him literally the day before at the crossing at Northcote station, in that great fake fur coat of his. And I had seen him, I think, the day before that on the seats at Clifton Hill Station, perhaps avoiding seeing me back. We always seemed to be meeting on public transport; he would often talk a mile a minute to cover up embarrassing silences. We talked of classical music: Schumann, Wagner, Bach, Larry Sitsky’s views on free form atonalism versus the twelve tone serial method described by Schönberg (and if you know what that means, good for you).
Perhaps one of my clearest memories of Santo – and of the whole Melbourne performance poetry scenes – happened at the beginning of one of the Passionate Tongues poetry nights, run by Michael Reynolds. Santo was always an amazing and original performance poet, but on this occasion he was performing a cover, a piece by Komninos about - exactly what you think it is about:In the hustle and bustle of ball and muscle
Of suck and fuck and pubic gyroovic…
In the eyes of desire, I see… FIRE!Many poets would not like being joined in like this, but I do believe Santo – notwithstanding the fact that he could be something of a prima donna, asking, when featuring, for the audience ‘not to applaud between poems’ – was delighted. This was the passion he wanted, spoken word poetry turned operatic. It showed his generosity and modesty, his acknowledgment that he came before many other brilliant performance poets, and after him would come many more. He was brilliantly, fiercely original – but also part of a tradition.
I see… FIRE!
And I see love.
Why am I so PEE SHY!And there, aside from the music, you had in one his flair for being both dramatic and startlingly vulnerable, all at once.
Why am I so PEE SHY!
The Bag Poem
In a bag
Coffee in a bag;
Robert Timms responsibly has coffee in a bag.
Some like to eke their days out on a tea leaf and a fag;
Some sing the song of Ganja, for life, man, is a drag;
Some like to go on café dates, and brag and brag and brag,
But Robert Timms, most frugally, takes coffee in a bag.
In a bag
In a bag
Coffee in a bag;
Robert Timms, most frugally, takes coffee in a bag.
Some like to rock, some like to roll, while others like to rag;
Some like to troll the comments, with a needle, nope and nag;
Some like to join the culture wars and raise the battle flag -
But Robert Timms is far off with his coffee in a bag.
In a bag
In a bag
Coffee in a bag
Robert Timms is far off with his coffee in a bag.
To some, life is all over; to some, life is a lag;
To some, the parents are a bore, the husband is a dag;
To some, the taste of life is sweet; to others, it’s a gag;
But Robert Timms is carefree and makes coffee in a bag.
In a bag
In a bag
Coffee in a bag;
Yes, Robert Timms is carefree and makes coffee in a bag.
Morry Schwartz's ongoing fanzine for those sophisticamated US publications, the New Yorker and the Atlantic, arrives in our postbox again. Its name, The Monthly, sometimes feels more like a threat than a statement of chronological intent, and let me say that Schwarz Inc is as good as its word - every 30 days duly inflicting culture upon us. And it's more than we deserve, I guess.
It is one of the enduring mysteries of contemporary Australian literature, this: why Schwarz's magazine should have been started in imitation of unabashedly snobbish, proclaimedly elitist magazines such as the New Yorker, and yet should fail to imitate the good qualities of the same magazine: the humour, the cartoons, the ongoing chronicle of life in a bustling city. What city is The Monthly centred in, even? The publishing house is in Melbourne, but it seems to be a nowhere magazine, attempting to be all things to some people, but being nothing to everyone. Is this another Sydney versus Melbourne rivalry thing?
If people ever wonder why I am still into zines, it's because in zines I would never find a sentence as boring as
Which makes the political challenges in this month's budget far more significant than any in recent history.
Whole swathes of the magazine are colonised by phrases like this. Articles appear on the regular about Important National Infrastructure Projects. Schwarz's commitment to social democracy, in practice, turns out to be like Daddy Pig's commitment to reading every book he can about concrete, albeit with less grunting*. When you turn to the arts pages, meanwhile, you are typically met with a blank wall of abstract art. Sometimes, there is nothing more expressionless than abstract expressionism, more inhuman than the humanities. I remember turning through the pages of one issue and marvelling at how studiously the photographers avoided actual faces, because it's boring photographing faces or something like that, and yes, it might be boring, but there's nothing like a face to make you feel actually included, part of an actual discussion, instead of being excluded at talked at.
And who reads all this stuff, anyway? The prose gives off a similar effect to prose in middle management staff surveys, or intergovernmental department communiques: brisk and efficient, bland, highly functional, but also vaguely threatening - as if, in the long run, it might turn out to actually mean nothing at all. Just this issue, I happen across an article on the decline of public literacy by James Ley, linking the same decline to the decline in democratic liberalism across the globe. Which is all well and good, so far as arguments go, but who is Ley writing to in the article? He agrees that literature is there to connect, to communicate, but his prose is singularly opaque; he gives no concrete examples; he wields the obscure verb 'to arrogate' repeatedly to display his intellectualism; and he seems embarrassed by the topic, ending up talking about all the talk about it that other people give - as if he doesn't really want to commit himself to a position. It is as if he were given the topic rather than chose it for himself, like a student being given an assignment.
So there you have it; the problem is not so much with Schwarz and the Monthly, it is with the whole structure of Australian intellectualism, and literature: it doesn't so much pose the hard questions, as get given them; and the writing is for no-one. It is just a series of bland prompts and the world's most uninspiring writer's group.
So, 20 years on, and I wonder why The Monthly is still so unconvincing. The question is not so much what is The Monthly doing: the question is why is The Monthly, even? Clearly Schwarz likes having it around. Will it bother to hang around after he is gone?
But, you know, the magazine sometimes has a Helen Garner column. There is that.
*'with less grunting'. Presumably. Who am I to say what Schwarz gets up to in the privacy of his own home?
When you sort a sort from a sort, and a sort from a sort -
That's assorting.
When you state that a sort is a sort of a sort (is a certain sort sort), -
That's asserting.
When you say that you're sorting,
That's asserted assorting.
When you say that a sort is a sort of a sort sort,
But you say that a sort sort
Is a sort of a sort,
That's assorted asserting.
Of this, I assert, I am certain.
I hope you're ready for some culture.
One to remember
(Guest essay by Patch)
Sometimes I like to bark at things, following which I will bark at things. Variety, they say, is the spice of life, so after that, I will bark at things some more.
In the afternoons, I will considerately bark at things, and in the evenings I will kindly bark at things. I lead a full and rich life.
All in all, matters with me are highly satisfying. After an exhausting day of Bark, I like to puff my pipe and perhaps engage in some improving literature or practise the fine arts.
Occasionally, it is true, I am met with the objection of 'Stop' or 'shut up' or 'can we please be quiet for one freaking second' from the humans. But to these objections, I merely reply: don't you spend the day barking (poorly) to one another*? And: aren't your television, radio, phone, etc barking at you all the time? And: once you get out and about in nature, what are even the trees doing?
Bark. Bark. And more bark.
In conclusion, I say, thank you for hearing me out. Bark.
*Repeat after me: bark. Bark. B A R K. Bark. You'll get the hang of it.
Something strange has been happening. For weeks now on social media, people have been going on and on and ON about how terrible Australia Day is and it's not something they'd ever celebrate. Okay... I suppose it's not that strange. But didn't people used to keep their whinging about Australia Day to, you know, Australia Day? It's becoming like a public festival, I tell you - a festival of all round denunciation. A month long festival of being against a thing. Here's how I think things will happen at some point in the not-too-distant future...
SCENE: Wazza arrives at his local Invasion Day party and is greeted at the door by Dazza.
DAZZA: Welcome to our Invasion Day party, Waz!
WAZZA: Thanks Daz, I mean, I had to come, didn't I - just change the bloody date, mate!
(Someone laughs, Dazza claps Wazza on the back and ushers him in)
DAZZA: Can I offer you a beer mate? (Gives Wazza a beer)
WAZZA: (Cracks can of beer and gives it a big chug) Thanks Daz. I needed that.
(Someone cheers) (Several people clap)
WAZZA: But remember... it's not a date to celebrate!
(Someone blows a kazoo and his friends laugh)
(Dazza suddenly looks solemn)
DAZZA: I think it's time...
(Gazza sits down at the piano and starts banging out an old, familiar tune - and to the melody of 'We wish you a merry Christmas' everybody in the room sings)
AN ANNOUNCEMENT
If you ask me how I am, I won't tell you.
That's just the way I am.
If you don't ask me how I am, I won't tell you.
It's important to be consistent.
If you ask me how I'm not, I might tell you.
Just to keep you on your toes.
If you don't ask me how I'm not, I might tell you anyway.
That's just the way it goes.
So, to sum up:
don't ask me how I am, because if you do, I won't. But do ask me how I'm not, because I might, and if you don't ask me how I'm not, I might anyway. So you might as well. Or might not.
Thank you for your time.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to post the Christmas poem yesterday - being temporarily incapacitated over the festive season by having a face. The problem has been now dealt with: I'm sorry. It won't happen again. Here then is my, somewhat belated, Christmas poem:
A Festive Ho
A jolly fat man in a big red suit
One of the many disadvantages to having a face that looks like it has been stung by a swarm of angry bees, as I do at the moment, is having a face that looks like it has been stung by a swarm of angry bees. This is always unfortunate. But aside from the many disadvantages, there are also advantages. For starters, one advantage to having a face is having a face, even if it does look like it has been stung by a swarm of angry bees. It is always of net benefit to have a face. Can you imagine what you'd do without one? Things could fall out. It could get quite alarming. On the whole, when it comes to having a face or not, I recommend the former.
Another advantage to the angry bee face - so remarkable that I am, in fact, remarking on it now - is the way in which this face so quickly becomes the thing people notice about you: the only thing, in fact, people notice about you. They become so busy noticing it about you that they don't notice anything else, and considering that your angry bee face is not your normal face, not even that.
This face, then, is a gift: you get to be able to make a dramatic entrance wherever you go, and others get to be concerned for you. You get to be a talking point, and they get to talk about you. Yes, you say, I am indeed aware that I have a face: thank you so much for noticing. Please join me later when I will still in all likelihood have a face probably. Thank you for coming to view my face.
It is, as I say, a gift: a gift for a very specific kind of person: the drama-queen-show-off-who-is-actually-very-private-in-person-person. Which, come to think of it, they all are. It is certainly true of all of me. "The only thing," as someone said, "worse than being noticed is not being noticed." I suppose that someone who said that also had a name and a face. But I didn't notice.
So, on the whole, taking into consideration the pros and the cons, the pluses and the minuses, the advantages and the angry bee faces, I personally enjoy having a face, no matter what kind of face my face has. It's what I use to face up to things, to face down things, to have my face fall and my face lift, and to face other things, especially other faces, in the face. On the face of it - which is, after all, the only thing faces are - faces seem quite good and useful. And also, there is this to consider: if we are so constantly using our faces to face other things, it only seems fair to have those other things to face our face on occasions, no matter what face our face has on.
The thing you have to remember about life is, some people are touchy. Other people, however, are touchy.
When touchy people touch touchy people, that's fine.
But when touchy people touch touchy people, that's never okay.
So that's a simple rule to remember, and that's the whole problem with life.
A Melbourne Cup poem
DEFINITION:
FOOD = GOOD
PECK + FOOD = MOREGOOD
DOOR + HUMAN = FOOD
SO
DOOR + HUMAN = GOOD
AND
PECK + DOOR + HUMAN = MOREGOOD
DEFINITION:
SCRATCH = GOOD
SO
SCRATCH = FOOD
DEFINITION:
SCRATCH + PECK + FOOD = TWO FOOD
TWO FOOD = VERYBIGMOREGOOD
QUESTION:
DOES PECK + HUMAN = FOOD?
NOT CLEAR
CONTINUE EXAMINATIONS
DEFINITION:
DIRT + RUFFLE = NICE
DIRT + RUFFLE + SCRATCH = NICE + FOOD = NICE + GOOD
CONSIDER: EGG.
DEFINITIONS:
EGG = CLUCK
CLUCK = NICEGOOD
SO
CLUCK = EGG + (DOOR + HUMAN)
CONSIDER EGG
CONSIDER CONSIDERATIONS MORE
CONSIDER CONSIDERATIONS CONSIDERABLY
CONCLUSION:
LIFE IS VERYBIGNICEMOREGOOD
CLUCK ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM
The baby's head was 33 centimetres, but allowing for adjusted measurements, it was 31 centimetres.
Morticia had died earlier that year, but, thanks to the year adjustment that occurred in all eastern states, she was now two years younger, and looked forward to dying, confusingly, all over again, in six months.
Thanks to this eastern state year adjustment, the baby was now minus two years old, and was still to be conceived. Its first birthday was going to be rather confusing.
Unfortunately, thanks to the regular fortnightly adjusted weight measurements, Ms Simms had gone from having a BMI of 27 to 37.
Tragically, the baby's name also had to be adjusted at birth. According to urban phoneme-adjustment regulations, the first letter of the baby's name, 'Huck', had to be shifted back two letters for the next six weeks.
The parents were still annoyed at this.
Washing lines
I was in Seymour yesterday and all the locals were snickering at my hat. Which I suppose is an important thing about hats. If people can’t snicker at unimportant people wearing hats, what good are the hats for? Seymour also has a pub, a cafe, and a train station, which is how I got there. Altogether I think I can safely say that Seymour has almost all the things to make it convincingly a town. Here is a poem I wrote about Seymour. Aren’t you lucky.
Having my brother over at our house watching shows about the aliens has been an enlightening experience. I'm so enlightened now. Let me sum up the experience:
NARRATOR: Our voyage through the ancient civilisations takes us to the pyramids. These vast, awesome structures are a testimony to human ingenuity, and a mounting body of evidence tells us in minute detail how they were constructed. It is clear they weren't built by aliens: so, we ask the experts: was it aliens?
PYRAMID EXPERT: No.
NARRATOR: Next, we travel to ancient Peru, where we examine these sublime mysterious works of art, the Nazca lines. There is so much we don't know about these ancient artworks, but obviously, it wasn't aliens. Or was it?
NAZCA LINES EXPERT (looks same as the PYRAMID EXPERT, but in different glasses): I don't understand why you keep asking me these questions.
NARRATOR: So it was, was it.
NAZCA LINES EXPERT: Oh, FFS...
NARRATOR: That's all right. Your silence says more than words ever could.
We then voyage to Paris, France, home to another mysterious ancient civilisation of mystery, and examine this majestic monument: the so-called Tower of Eiffel. Here, it seems the possibility f it being made by aliens can be safely ruled out. Or can it?
PARIS EXPERT: Yes.
NARRATOR: So you're saying it was aliens after all?
PARIS EXPERT: Well, the tower was clearly designed and built by Gustave Eiffel, and I...
NARRATOR: Never heard of him.
PARIS EXPERT: .... if I could just...
NARRATOR: Really makes you wonder, doesn't it?
PARIS EXPERT: ... and here are the historical documents, showing...
NARRATOR: It is yet another mystery hidden in the ancient past.
PARIS EXPERT: Why are you even bothering to ask me, if you just...
NARRATOR: La la la la la. I guess we'll never know. So anyway, come with us in our show THE UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT SPACE TIME AND WHY IT WAS THE ALIENS.
It's great stuff!
A Christmas Message
We are now approaching once again Christmas. Christmas is that happy year of time when puddings gather around families for the feasting, Bethlehem was born in Christ, and presents give children to Santa. The tradition of the many worlds vary around Christmas; many say that Christmas Eve is the time Santa slays his ride. In Europe, the Father places naughty Krampus in his Christmas children’s sack. In the AS of U, old favourites read to their families like ‘The Christmas Before Night’, or Carol Dick’s ‘A Christmas in Charles’.
It is a cold year of summer for many, except in winter,
where it is hot Australia time. Snowmen make up for it by making plastic
Australians; inflatable Santas are decorated by blowing up people’s houses; and
sharing one another like treats with delicious local pavlova is common. Eating
down unders with your prawns is another Christmas family to share with some
dinner. Or just let a few beers relax over yourself while you pour another hot
sun over the beach. Ah, life this is the!
Many beloved times are sung in these festive songs, not
including, but limited to:
And the Hivy Olly, the
The Barrell of the Kells
Dock the Hells with Howls of Bolly
And
Rudolph, the Red Rain Knows, Dear
And so more many many.
But what is the meaning of really, Christmas? Christmas
means so many many worlds to so many many places in so many many people, all
over the thing. But is not the real celebrating us all coming in the end
together to mean? Or is it? As the old goeth saying:
Peace on men, good earth will to all,
Or
God bless one, every us.
And I think there’s someone in that for everything of us,
don’t you?
If modernity is the tireless battle against boredom, then chess is the unceasing battle against excitement. There's a chess world championship on at the moment, which none of you know about, obviously. Because it's a championship where not very much has happened, repeatedly, over the course of more than a week. Ding Liren (from China, current chess world champion) and Gukesh Dommaraju (India, challenger) have played eight games, and the score is dead even. Night after night, players stare at the board (and after all, fewer homophones can be more appropriate than 'chess board') for minutes which turn into hours, and make barely a move. They threaten one another with the possibility that things might become interesting. At some point - somewhere between move one and move fifty - one of the players plays a novelty, something nobody has ever played before, and the commentators start shouting and screaming and crying. Nothing exciting has happened, and they get excited anyway.
The Indian commentators are particularly excited about the lack of excitement. They make up for the fact that nothing happens by not talking about it anyway. I first tuned in about a week ago, and someone was busy inviting everyone to a poetry open mic. (Most of you will know that this is obvious my kind of boring.) Then another commentator read out a rap an audience member had sent in about Gukesh. And this kept on happening. Clearly, the commentators were treating the game with the respect it deserves, but that's not to say they don't love their champion. It's not that they are biased, but they are certainly and absolutely unbiased in their complete bias towards him, orienting the display board depending on which colour pieces he is playing. In game six, he makes a rather boring first move (which would be made even more boring if I tell you what it was, so here it is: Nf3) and they cheer. Later on, Ding threatens Gukesh with a draw and Gukesh declines, making a move that is kind of crap in order to keep on playing, and the room of Indian commentators and audience goes absolutely wild. A few moves later, there is a draw anyway. Both players achieve the finest victory of all: of not losing. I love it.
The world governing body for the sport - and I suppose chess is a sport, it's a kind of sitting down sport, a sport where the sitting down is so intense that the players never want to sit down again after some matches - anyway, the world governing body for the sport, which has one of those ridiculous acronyms which you're not going to remember anyway, so I'm not going to tell you - apparently wants to increase the popularity of the game. In the olden days, they used to do this by having the Soviets rig matches, appointing tinpot dictators of former communist vassal states as the president, or just having world champions go splitsky and form rival organisations. Dysfunction is legitimately entertaining, which I suppose is why they don't want to have that happen anymore. Instead, they want to do it by, like, streaming and stuff. It'll never catch on. It's adorable. Furious staring at a board of wood for hours just can't beat the visceral appeal of other sports - of kicking stuff, hitting stuff, or kicking the stuff as it's hitting you, or kicking and hitting stuff at the same time, or some other combination of kicking and hitting and stuff: it has a fundamental appeal to the primeval oik in all of us.
Chess is a great game. I really recommend it. Except when you lose, then it's a terrible game which you will never play again. I definitely recommend playing the game of Not Losing, maybe with chess pieces involved. Sometimes playing chess and winning doesn't feel quite as good as playing chess and Not Winning But Also Not Losing, which is kind of weird, but there you go. I don't really have a point here, but neither does chess. Which is also great. Things that don't have a point are always interesting. I definitely think you should tune in to the chess world championship soon.
Or, you know, not. But only if you have more boring things to do. You wouldn't want things to get too exciting.
UPDATE! -
Apparently haiku have to be about nature to be properly considered haiku. What about natural numbers? I’m pretty sure they count. Yeah - they totally count.
'Please refrain' is a refrain that only those in certain professions are pleased to use. 'Please refrain from talking with your mouth open while you are eating' is a refrain that mother is likely to refrain from. 'Are you going to have another pot, or are you going to refrain?' is a refrain that a mate drinking with you at the pub will be refraining from. No, it is only those in the customer services who are pleased to ask you to 'please refrain', 'please refrain from smoking in the entrance'; 'children will please refrain from running at the shops': thus goes the refrain.
To quote the pleasing refrain.
The question therefore is, would the framers of the 'please refrain' refrain like to reframe their refrain of 'refrain', in order to better reform the audience of the refrain, or do they, instead, wish to retrain the audience so that 'please refrain' becomes a pleasingly common refrain? The answer is clearly obvious to all: which is why I have no idea what it is.
But I want to make this last point absolutely clear: whatever customer service you are in, please refrain from pleasing customers in the doorway, okay? This is not the sort of neighbourhood for that behaviour, not at all.
Hello. Here is a poem about bottoms.
Since you haven't asked, let me tell you anyway. Let me tell you all about what I've been thinking. I've been thinking about shallots, that's what. You might think that's a lot to take in, but it's not: it's shallot. A crucial difference, that.
Besides, that's the thing about shallots, that's the important point: they're not a lot, they're a little. They're a little tasty, a little sweet, and, most importantly, a little onion. Which they're not. (In other words, they are not what they are. (That's why they're called 'shallots', not 'onions': do you follow me?))
Okay. So, shallots have a rich and storied history, none of which I will go into today. Instead, let us quote from Wikipedia:
The shallot is a cultivar group of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, Allium ascalonicum.
Great!
The taxon was synonymized with Allium cepa (the common onion) in 2010, as the difference was too small to justify a separate species.
So it seems that shallots are not only too small to be an onion, but they are too small to be not.
(Pedants might object that it is not the shallot that is small in the last case, it is the difference. But what is the difference between a difference, anyway? It's very small, that's what it is.)
Here is a poem I wrote about shallots:
There's a lot to shallots,
There's a lot but there's not -
There's a lot to a little, you see:
No, you mustn't belittle
The littlest little -
To be little is something to be.
Readers will notice with what care and restraint I have avoided ending the poem with 'fiddle diddle diddle diddle dee'. It is important to finely tune one's poetic craft that way. Just as there is a lot to the little that is shallots, so there is a lot to the little that is poetry, in that you start with a lot, and you take out a little, and you take out a little more, and a little more, and a little more, and you end up taking out a lot with with a little left over, in order to say a lot with a little. Or sometimes, you try to say a little with a little, or sometimes, to those with a purer artistic temperament, you end up using a little and saying even less. Presumably the purest poem of all is one in which all meaning and words are taken out, with nothing left over, but that has already been written by someone or other so to write it out again would be plagiarism. I certainly had a lot to say about shallots in this poem, and avoided saying it altogether, so this is what you got.
But I suppose there are some things a lot about shallots. You can grow a lot of them. You can like them a lot. And you can grow shallots in a lot, and an allotted lot withal, so you could, if you chose, grow a lot of shallots in a lot of allotted lots. That's not a lot, but it's something. That's not a lot, even if it literally is. It's a little lot, which is just about as much as anyone could ask for.
In addition, here is a shallot that I found the other day.
I cooked it and turned it into a tiny onion tart, and here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon of olive oil
1 shallot
A splash of white wine
Puff pastry
Method:
Cut the puff pastry to the side of a small pan. Turn the oven on to 180 degrees celsius. Cut the shallot into pieces and fry it over medium heat for a few minutes until it browns nicely on all sides.
Add the white wine to the pan and let it reduce a bit.
Pop the puff pastry over the top of the shallot, and fold it in under the edges. Put the whole pan in the oven and leave it in there until the puff pastry rises and turns golden brown, about 20 minutes.
Invert the shallot tart over a board or plate and serve.
But enough talking about poetry and recipes and what not, we were talking about shallots. This is the end of my talk about shallots.
