Australia Day Address from the Chop Exchange

Explanation for those outside of or unfamiliar with this byway of Australian culture: Sam Kekovich got a name on TV for outspoken, blunt, politically incorrect, controversial and generally very funny comedy speeches, and for the last few years there has been a Sam Kekovich ad (funded I'm guessing by the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation) addressing the nation in advance of Australia Day, encouraging us to eat local lamb.  This is the 2009 one, complete with references to events in the previous year.  YouTube has video of previous Australia Day Sam Kekovich addresses.

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How hot?????

Today's temperature reached 42 degrees Celsius.  In case the translation is helpful to you, that's around 107 degrees Fahrenheit.  In the shade.  Hot?  Damn.  Yes.

P-sychic, like.

And did an Australian newspaper that I've read, or report that I've seen on TV or heard on radio, mention Praise Song for the Day, Elizabeth Alexander's poem for Barack Obama's inauguration? 

Nope.  Not a one. As p-sychically-like predicted on this here blog.  Sad but true.

Lots of info, YouTube and transcript in a blog entry from the day - just click on the link or scroll on through January 2009 and you'll find it for your reading, listening and viewing pleasure.  And I do mean pleasure.  It's still rolling around happily in my head.

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Hamish Macbeth

0901 Hamish Macbeth
Originally uploaded by rooruu

Ah, it's been hot these last couple of weeks. Hot hot hot. The weather, for starters. Days of 35degC+ (hovering around and exceeding 100degF some days). Sure, the washing dries almost as you peg it out, but there have been no proper cool changes, with thunderstorms and rain and southerly busters, to relieve the temperature, and the grass and greenery is browning off almost as you look at it - crunchy lawn underfoot, anyone? If you don't have airconditioning in your house, you're heavily tempted to go out (cinema, for instance, or to higher altitudes) in search of a cooler place. Sleep isn't restful as you toss and turn, unable to cool down. The forecast says we have several more days of this to endure. Endure is the word for it. Me, I'm a spring and autumn girl, for the climate around here.

On to other meanings of hot...I won't explain*, except to say that there's been a Hamish Macbeth fest going on around here for the last couple of weeks, every program from series 1 to the end (series 3). It's lovely, clever writing, well acted, quirky, plots twisting in unexpected ways. Sometimes you just have to sit and laugh aloud at what you're seeing and hearing. A great ensemble cast (as with SeaChange, a wonderful Australian TV series with a similarly excellent ensemble cast, quirky, clever writing and distinctive location).

I noticed, with amusement, that writer of many episodes Daniel Boyle had a couple of line-or-two bit parts, as "Handsome Sailor" and chuckled at his enterprise and initiative - if you're the writer, and writing yourself in, why not make the part of the sailor "Handsome Sailor"!

Or maybe I'm just a tragic person who reads credits too carefully.

The background is a Buchanan tartan kilt. Modern Buchanan, fairly unmistakable and definitely loud - I've seen it cited as one of the gaudiest tartans. Go to Google images and look for "Ancient Buchanan" to see a less lairy version of the Buchanan colours and sett.

It's hot. Did I mention that? It will almost be a relief to be back at work, where there is intermittent airconditioning.

It's too darn hot. (That could be a good line for a song...oh, it is already. OK).

*because this blog only has intelligent readers
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A self portrait, with apologies to Shepard Fairey

Well, it's so much fun to play with the Obamicon, particularly today.  With apologies to Shepard Fairey, who created the iconic poster of Barack Obama.

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Still, lookee there, it's a portrait of the blogger.  Rare, very rare.

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You upload a photo, then can adjust the blues and red and white and if you like upload it to their gallery.  Or, as I did, take a screenshot (Control + Print Screen), paste it into a program and save the image file.  Do leave a comment if you blog one yourself!

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Found the link courtesy of Remo, which has more remarkable, quirky merchandise than you'll find anywhere.

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"Praise Song For the Day" by Elizabeth Alexander : Inauguration poem

It may not survive in full in edited highlights of Barack Obama's inauguration, but Elizabeth Alexander's poem was, to me, outstanding - with the simplicity and complexity of the best writing.  Here it is, in case you missed it.

I've removed the text of the poem, so go to this link to see it in print in a location on the net where it has the poet's permission to be.

Added later: see a video and read reactions to this poem here. Added even later: I've put in the YouTube link. I know not everyone will agree with the poem, or the declamatory style, but I was more than happy with both. Poetry is compressed language, rich with meaning, above all, and this was a poem.

Added later still: I've found a version that is set out as Elizabeth Alexander said she wrote it, in tercets.  Source of this info.  Here's a thoughtful critical analysis of it as a poem from the Guardian (UK) and a more critical review from the Times (UK).

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Kiva: Azra, Nazreen, Sharifan and Zaitoon/ Inauguration Day

Almost a year ago, I undertook my first Kiva loan, to Moriya Nabieva who sells fabric in a Tajikistan market, in Yavan.  It's now paid back; and in the intervening year, I've undertaken seven more Kiva loans.  Facilitated by the internet, fuelled by the imagination of an American couple who said, why not?, this forum for microfinance is a remarkable venture.  I wrote on my Kiva profile back then that this is a great adventure, and it remains so.

Having woken at 3.30am to watch the inauguration of the 44th American president, Barack Obama, live on television (yes, before-sunrise early!), I figured the best way to celebrate was to take neighbourhood action.  Not here in my own community, but the wider community, give something from the opportunities we have here so others have opportunities too.

So my ninth Kiva loan is undertaken today.  Here's more information about Azra and her group:

My name is Azra. I am 49 years old and married. I live in a city named Borewala, Pakistan. I own a two room brick house in the city where I have lived for the past 25 years. My husband's name is Ibrar Hussain. He is a driver by profession. He drives an auto-rickshaw (a local three-wheeled motor vehicle) and has 15 years of experience. I am a mother of six children: three sons and three daughters. My eldest son is an electrician. My middle son works in an office. My youngest son reads in 2nd standard. My eldest daughter reads in 3rd standard. My middle daughter reads in 2nd standard. My youngest daughter reads in kindergarten.

It’s my wish to give my children a good education, because I truly believe that education is the key to success. If a person takes advantage of education they can achieve their goals. To achieve my wish, I earn money with the skill of sewing clothes. I get orders from my relatives and my neighbors. I have used the income to pay the school expenses for my children.

I am applying for a loan to buy repair tools for my eldest son, so that he is able to repair electrical items easily.

I am a group leader of some women in my locality. Nasreen akhtar baji wants a loan to buy wood to resell. Sharifan baji wants a loan to buy cosmetics to resell. Zaitoon baji wants a loan to buy groceries for her grocery shop.

This is a group loan. The loan funds will be distributed among the group members, each of whom will invest in their own business. The members mutually guarantee each other's loans. If one member does not repay, the other members are responsible.
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I'm not American, but the principles of Barack Obama's inauguration speech hold true whichever country you are in.

Barack, live on Australian television, very early in the morning

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We have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly.

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What could you do?  This loan was fully funded within the time it's taken me to write this blog entry, but there are new loan opportunities on Kiva every hour, every day.
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PS he mentioned patchwork in his speech.  We don't just have a great craft, but it's also a compelling metaphor.  Did he knit anything, or sculpt or fashion or plane or sew or scrap?  Nooooo!  Patchwork! she says with a triumphant grin.
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100 Word Stories: An invitation with three conditions

Green.  She hadn’t worn green in fifty years.  Not since…

The invitation seemed ridiculously expensive to her, professionally printed, and for an eighteenth birthday.  Suzannah had always been daft about her girl Chloe-Anne.  And why on earth, wear green, bring flowers and a plate with at least one green food.

Green.  Ken had said he loved her, loved the green dress.  That night, the earth had rumbled her from sleep and in the early light of morning the news had come of those miners who wouldn’t return.

Fifty years.  Was it time, now to try wearing green?  Just this once?

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100 Word Stories: Peanut butter, a llama and the police

I hate peanut butter. Mercedes wrote in her blog that her llamas love it. I suspect that llamas are much like camels and cows, unselfconsciously capable of more saliva than I want to think about.


It’s hard not to be cranky when you come home to a broken door and find that the burglars had time and better taste than you would hope. Not just the TV, but Aunt Lucy’s china. It’s all only stuff, I know it’s only stuff. The policeman held out my box of tissues just as my running nose and streaming eyes were getting entirely embarrassing.

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Quilt in progress (N)

0901 quilt in progress
Originally uploaded by rooruu

This is the N quiltlet for Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine (vol 18 no 2, due out in 5-6 months). A bunch of favourite fabrics, happy moderns mostly. They didn't end up like this, but when the magazine is out, you'll be able to see it complete.

These are some of the fabrics I was cutting the other day - had the fabrics out, so I figured there was a happy quiltlet in there too, and cut some more to make it happen.

It's nearly finished now - the binding is half sewn down and (sometimes the bit that takes longer!) the instructions and article are nearly complete too.

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Quilt in progress (M)

0901 quilt in progress
Originally uploaded by rooruu

A sneak peek at the M quiltlet for Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine. Love that vintage conversational scissors fabric, and that kind of dead plain vintage button.

This is going to be vol. 18 no. 1, due out in about five months (the published quiltlets are up to G for Gundagai in the alphabet of Australian places).

I'm halfway!

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Cutting out a quilt

0901 cut quilt fabric
Originally uploaded by rooruu

Sometimes, you have a brilliant idea for a quilt. Then you start cutting (you've decided to include as much variety as possible). Fish out fabric, press with the iron, cut, trim to size, repeat.....then fold dozens of pieces of (now slightly smaller) fabric to put back in the stash.....

But the upside is that this quilt is going to include so many favourite fabrics. Yum. Fabrics from Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler, Denyse Schmidt and lots more.

So you bung on a DVD or talking book, and away you go. Some hours later, halfway done with cutting this quilt, you have a pile of anticipated fun that looks something like this.

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100 Word Stories: Birthday surprise

On Wednesday, the bride doll was gone. Mellie pressed her nose to the shop window, gulping a tear.


She looked everywhere. Mam chased her away from the airing cupboard, and that half-forgotten cupboard under the stairs.


“Leave it, Mellie. Stop sticky-beaking.”


But her birthday was on Friday, and they’d had baked beans for tea three times this week. Da came home late and tired, and Mam had been working extra shifts.


The birthday parcel was too small. Mellie tried to smile. Inside was a different doll, with clothes she knew her Mam had sewn, clothes like Mellie’s. A new friend.

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Road Trip 4: exhibition I: The Art of Couture: Paris and London, 1947-1957

The object of the road trip was The Art of Couture exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery . (Note: information on that link, but only one picture.  More pics on a link below).

We weren't the only tourists who were drawn to Bendigo by this exhibition - not only an extraordinary exhibition, but also the only place to see it in Australia.

It's in a separate wing/entrance of the gallery, and with an admission charge ($16 for adults).  Clever window decals, too (note the artwork/sculpture pretend pavilion in the background).

Allow yourself plenty of time.  Last entry is 4.15pm, but you'd want well more than 45 minutes: if you watch the films of couture being made and shown, they run for well over half an hour on their own.

But of course what you want to see are the frocks and gowns, hats and suits and the elegance and style of it.  The exhibition was first shown at the Victoria and Albert museum in London, which has a legendary collection of costume, fashion, couture and design.  They called it "The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947 - 1957" and their website is more generous with images at this link .

If you're interested in the exhibition catalogue, this is what it looks like:

(That dress is beautiful!).  The catalogue is a published book ie. available from booksellers, not just the galleries.  The Book Depository (free shipping worldwide) has it here (from whence I borrowed the image).  It was about $60AU at the gallery.

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There's a public carpark at the back of the gallery that has sections for up to four hours of parking.  Rates are cheap: we approved of the Bendigo habit of charging for parking, but not a lot - so people do move on and parking spaces are available.

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And after all that practical information, what will you see?

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Beautiful beautiful clothes, made with skills you can hardly imagine - thousands and thousands of hand-sewn beads on a single bodice, the cutting and draping of fabric to create quiet elegance.  A whole way of living, walking, standing, being that's utterly different to how most of the world lives or will ever live, even in our well-off first world society.

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It also struck me how so many of these clothes were not made for broomstick figured young women, as is the focus of so much 'high fashion' today.  Women of many ages could wear these and have elegance and style.  Some were made for the wives of rich men, but some also for women with husbands in high positions, ambassadors or representatives, who needed a 'working wardrobe' of this sort of style, like the women of the royal family (at which point I'll note that Princess Margaret was apparently an early adopter of Dior's New Look and judging by the garments on display, she had a tiny tiny waist).

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Part of the exhibition included dressed dolls: there were at least two touring exhibitions put together just after the war, with (skeletal wire with papier mache faces and real hair) doll figures dressed by couturiers in Paris and London to show these new fashions (and in a way that was less expensive than making full size costumes).  There were also photographs of the clothes by people such as Richard Avedon, with excellent information on how these were composed to highlight the clothes, and how the style of photography was changing to a more active style, rather than stiffly posed models.

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The lighting is low, as you would expect with fragile textiles.  In just one case, the shadows cast by the placement of lighting meant you couldn't see something well enough, but the rest was fine.

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Lovely, lovely work to see.  Don't miss it.  It closes late in March 2009.

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100 Word Stories: Rear window

Story prompt from 100 word stories blog archive (and why is it that so many of these seem to be written in anticipation of slasher/murder tales, or at least a goodly dollop of tomato sauce being involved??) was thus:

Laid up with a broken leg you look out of the rear window of your apartment and see…

I’m never here during the day, on weekdays.  Their rhythm is something I’ve never been here to notice.  The stop-start burr of the postie’s motorcycle.  Mrs Holt takes her yappy pug for a walk at eleven o’clock – I hear them in the corridor.  

But in the back garden of the next door house, under a shadesail, an older man is restoring a sixties Ford.  He has tools laid out carefully, and from what I can see of the car, much to do.  If I open the window, I think I can hear him whistling, but I don’t know the tune.

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Julie & Julia

0901 Julie and Julia
Originally uploaded by rooruu

OK, I'll admit it, I tripped over this while browsing bargain audiobook CDs on the Barnes and Noble site a while back. The concept got my attention - funny, a tad nutty but intriguing. I ended up buying the audiobook on CD and the book (the hardcover was on special. I suspect I'm sounding cheap about now, or at least thrifty. Do remember that a) audiobookCDs are more expensive in Australia and b) I did have to pay postage).

Anyhoo. I'd started the book a while back, and was chortling through it while simultaneously trying to imagine cooking with as much butter as Julie was describing. Julia Child , and her 1961 cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking (containing the 524 recipes Julie set out to cook in a single year, and blog about) are, I gather, American classics, through the book and Julia Child's TV shows.

The Australian equivalent, I guess, would be Margaret Fulton . The Australian Women's Weekly cookbook was in hundreds of thousands of homes, but it was/is a collective work, lacking the same cult of personality/individual imprimatur. I still refer to MF's Encyclopedia of Food & Cookery, and have a copy of the AWW Cookbook (the harcover one before they started publishing dozens of softcover narrow-focus ones) that was a school prize way back when.  Now, of course, the world is full of telecooks.

On the recent road trip, for some of the time, Julie & Julia got its turn on the car's CD player. As read by Julie Powell, the author, so you KNOW she must have the emphases right... and it was great fun to listen to.

If you're of tender sensibilities, be aware that she is not, or at least addresses with gusto (and salty language) topics that might make your mother wince here and there. But she also talks about food and cooking in wonderful, evocative ways, as the project she undertook to in some ways save her life, instead changed it in ways she could never have imagined.

This must be one of the earliest blog-to-book success stories. The film (directed by Nora Ephron) is due out later this year, with Amy Adams as Julie, Meryl Streep as Julia and Stanley Tucci as Paul Child.

Julie's original blog, The Julie/Julia Project
Julie's current blog
IMDB entry for the film

100 Word Stories: A stroke of luck

I hate weeding.  Small weeding, the persistent stuff that you can never get rid of, onion weed and wandering jew, is no fun.  But Grandma’s vegetable garden, a single bed now when once it was an entire backyard, is one of her few pleasures.  So every week, I weed it.  She sits in a garden chair, behind the big old house that’s now a nursing home, and points out what I’ve missed.

But then we slice a fragrant tomato, warm from the sun, and I understand why it’s worth weeding, and why I’m lucky to still be fed by Gran.

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An Award!

Candy at Not A Walking Encyclopedia gave me this award!

This is what she said:  The Prémio Dardos is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web. I award this one to Patterning The World and she well deserves it. Not only will you find her original fiction on her blog but she spreads the word about methods to help those less fortunate. She also is a quilter and miniature enthusiast.

Thank you, Candy!

As a mark of return respect, I'll note here for anyone in Australia who also plans to set their alarm clock for 3.30am Sydney time on Wednesday 21 January, that the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) is broadcasting Barack Obama's inauguration on ABC1, live and uninterrupted.  Here's the TV guide link.

Quite accidentally I was in Washington DC when Bill Clinton was inaugurated for the first time (I was on a fellowship grant, travelling through North America), and it was an amazing time to be there.  The atmosphere...well, the closest I've got to it since is probably in Sydney during the Olympics in 2000, the general bonhomie, goodwill, the sense of shared celebration.  It was a great time to be there, just being among that crowd, walking the Mall, hearing the oath of office not only through the radio (I was a fair way away, but could see the Capitol building) but also faintly through the loudspeakers.  Whatever one's hindsight opinion of his presidency - back then at the start it was all optimism, the hope of change, and I imagine it's a similar feeling now, too.  The audacity of hope.

Collector

Collector is a tiny village just off the highway to and from Canberra, not far from Lake George.  It's little more than a pub, a general store and the very highly regarded Lynwood cafe.

On my way home from the Canberra quilt show last winter, I detoured onto the Collector road because it was snowing, and I wanted to stop and enjoy this novelty and how beautiful it was.

Remember this?

Well, this is how it looks in summer.

Bit of a difference!

I haven't finished with the Road Trip pictures - more soon.  Thanks to Ngaire and to Jamie at Bendigo Accommodation for the lovely comments - always good to get ticks from the locals (that's ticks of approval, not the kind with rather too many legs and a habit of adhesion...!).  And to C/Quiltycat - what a pity you'd gone to visit where we'd left to visit not far from where you live!!

Road Trip 4: architecture

One of the pleasures of travel is seeing the architecture of Away.

Sometimes it's just the angles of a modest nineteenth century cottage, like this one in Violet Town.

Or the pleasure of seeing a classic corrugated roof weatherboard cottage with wire fence and a tumble of pink roses - this one also in Violet Town.

Or else something grander, like the Art Gallery in Bendigo, Victorian sandstone and the clear influence of nineteenth century gold rush money.

We parked next to the Art Gallery, in a car park overlooking the oval and this graceful grandstand - iron lace done well, as historically it was (and in modern terms, usually isn't).

In the city centre, there were lots more buildings to admire - influences from English architecture, other tall thin buildings with mansard roofs that looked like they might be found in Paris, and a whopper of a cathedral (which I didn't photograph).  Rosalind Park has this Soldiers' Museum, with Queen Victoria keeping an eye on things:

For me, it's sometimes the smaller details that are most engaging.  Here's the ex-fire station, next to the Gallery - a wonderfully grand side door:

And (from memory on the same street, View St), this relic of past activity:

In Castlemaine, the visitors' centre is in what we guessed was once a wool store, with wonderful green paintwork.

Lots to see, and much more than I could photograph on one short visit.  Castlemaine (that's cassulmaine, not carslemaine, one learns - rhymes with hassle rather than parcel) and Maldon (wonderful main street!) too are rich in beautiful buildings, large and small.