Talking Points

You think that I don't even mean
A single word I say
It's only words, and words are all
I have to take your heart away - "Words", Bee Gees 1969

Did she go to work or just go to the store
All those things she said, I told you to ignore
Oh why can't we talk again
Oh why can't we talk again
Oh why can't we talk again
Don't leave me hanging on the telephone
Don't leave me hanging on the telephone - "Hanging on the Telephone", Debbie Harry, from The Nerves - 1978

Comfort, Texas

I have a friend. She is a really good friend. An American friend. I really like her. I will call her X.

I have been friends with X  now for many years. I usually argue with my friends. It is just how I am.

My excuse for the arguing is that I really care about them (on my side),and they are very annoying (their side).  X  knows she is annoying, and I think it is because we are at one on this point, that the friendship has continued for so many years.

X is special. I don't have many American friends. Also she is "centered" as they say on the West Coast. Well, here as well. And in OZ. But I think it started on the West Coast. Being centered as opposed to self-centered I mean. X is both. I don't think she can see the difference between "centered" and "self-centered". I fact I doubt she has even thought about centeredness - in terms of her own behavior, that is. And as for me, I am impressed!

Last evening X called me. X is the only person I know, who puts people on hold when SHE initiates the call. "I haven't got a lot of time," she told me when I picked up. She was in a pharmacy and was asking one of the workers about the different body exfoliates.

All I could hear was her discussion with the pharmacy person,  interrupted by "I am still here, just be PATIENT!" Then I heard the cash register ring and she said "I am getting on the train to the East Village now," and the phone went dead. That's what it's like having X as a friend. There is no point in saying anything. It is a put-up-or-shut-up sorta thing.

I was at X's house last week, when  she got one of those annoying calls. You know the type. When someone who you have never heard of, from a company you have never dealt with, calls and says, "Hello Kate (or whoever you are). And what sort of day are you having today?"

I usually answer something along the lines of, "Who are you? " Or "I'm busy!" Or "This isn't Kate; she is in the hospital. with a terminal illness."

X just snapped at the caller, "If you can't say what you are calling about in one sentence, then I'm not interested."

I can't do that. I am  more passive aggressive, or so I have been told. Sometimes I just put the phone down and go to the bathroom. By the time I get back they have gone.

But there ARE times that I rise to the occasion.

Like today. I took a call. "Hi can I speak to Eric?" it asked. "No!" I answered in a very firm voice. "He never wants to talk to you again."

Last week I had a call from a young woman with a name like "Madison" spelled wrong. It was about ten in the morning on the East coast, even earlier in the morning on the West coast."

"Good afternoon," she said, "my name is Madison and how are you feeling today?" "It isn't afternoon," I said. "Well it feels like afternoon," she replied. And then, "I would like to talk you about retirement villages."

I hated her. I hated her before when said about the retirement villages - I hated her when she didn't know what time of day it was. "I am not interested in talking to someone who doesn't know what time of day it is," I answered,  and - well you can't "slam the phone down" anymore. So I just double clicked the home button on my iPhone and went upon my way.

Ten days ago I needed to call my bank in Australia. Now I have an excellent phone service in New York. It costs me nothing to call OZ, but  the Commonwealth Bank of Australia doesn't know that.

Mid Town NYC

I had been in a prickly mood all morning. It was around 11:00 am in New York - 3:00 pm in Sydney when I came off "hold" and the Men at Work musak. Wanting to get back to whatever I'd been doing, I went straight to the point, and explained that I was calling from New York and it was quite expensive to be on hold, so I hoped we could get to my question.

Being Australian, the customer service person was called Janelle and not Madison. "Oh what's it like in New York?" she asked. This was coming from one of my own people so I didn't snap her head off. "It is very cold,"  I answered." "And what is it like to live there?" she said. I tried to summarise 18 years of living in NYC into one sentence.

"Jeez," Janelle said, "I want to go there one day How did you get there? D'you think I'd get work?"

My tolerance limit was reached. "I am calling about my bank balance and I really can't give you a travelogue on New York City," I said, in a nasty voice, thereby justifying all of the expats-are-annoying-especially-the-ones-in America thing, and undoing my attempt at being a nice person. The line went dead.

I guess Janelle wont be coming to New York anytime soon. As for me, I am going to take politeness classes from my friend X.

She's nailed it.

Little Boxes

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same. - Little Boxes, Malvina Reynolds, 1962

I was born in a cross-fire hurricane
And I howled at my ma in the driving rain,
But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas!
But it's all right. I'm jumpin jack flash,
It's a gas! gas! gas! - Jumping Jack Flash, Jagger/Richards, 1968

I'd always believed that "Little Boxes" was written by Pete Seeger. I should have known that such a clever song was written by a woman! No offence to Pete, a man who never craved the limelight.

I only discovered that Malvina Reynolds composed the song when I checked the lyrics today -  thinking about Pete Seeger who died last Monday in New York.

End of an era.

A mere six years between "Little Boxes" and "Jumping Jack Flash". Between the gentle, almost self-effacing Seeger, and the bold rebellion of Jagger. Who would have thunk it?

I can actually remember where I was when I first heard  "Little Boxes". I was with my father in a car on the way to the Sir Colin MacKenzie Fauna Park - otherwise known as the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary.

It was on an access visit. My father was driving, and left-wing socialist that he was, he referred to the wild-life sanctuary by its correct name, "The Sir Colin MacKenzie Fauna Park". That's what he was like. Having never learned to read and write until he was a grown man (a big thank you to the Saint Augustines Boys' Orphanage), he prided himself on getting things right.

Of course none of the gray looking people on the streets of Melbourne had a clue as what he was talking about. "Sir Colin MacKenzie Fauna Park" indeed!  A lover of the proletariat by political conviction, my father could never quite cope with the working class in the flesh.

Bill lived in New Zealand and my brother and I, in Australia. It was in the gray years of the fifties, that extended their dull influence to the early sixties in Australia.  The country we expats now call "OZ"  - being run at the time by a political party several degrees to the right of the American Tea Party that was to come later.

Of course we never made it to Healesville to see the koalas and kangaroos. My father, like me and my brother, had spatial dyslexia, and couldn't read maps or find his way out of a box. He drove round in circles, passing little boxes all the same. I remember he kept stopping to ask the gray-looking pedestrian pedestrians of Melbourne's outer suburbs, "Can you please direct me to Sir Colin MacKenzie Fauna Park?". He said in his best Sir Laurence Olivier British upper class actor voice. Olivier, his hero.

Tim and I cringed. We cringed a lot in those days. When to be accepted one had to be normal. When to have divorced parents was definitely not.

We were access visit, latch-key kids.  Now I think of it, we were ahead of our time!

I was going to write about Greek ruins in Northcote, and how it is so annoying when customer service people ask what sort of day you are having...

But  listening to "Little Boxes" did me in.

Thank you Pete Seeger.

It was because of you Pete Seeger,  that we were able to grow out of our "boxes".

Valé.

A Circle Game

I've never seen a diamond in the flesh
I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies
And I'm not proud of my address
In the torn up town, no post code envy - Lorde, Royals 2012

The wind is in from Africa
Last night I couldn't sleep
Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here Carey
But it's really not my home - Joni Mitchell, Carey 1970

About a hundred years ago, when I had just arrived in New York, I used to visit art galleries almost every weekend. Back then the Frick, MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art were things of wonder.

I had almost forgotten about those salad days of exploring New York until an article in The Guardian by Andres Serrano jogged my memory.

I remembered going to Brooklyn to see the much advertised "Piss Christ" by Andres Serrano - a  photograph of  small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine.

Before then I had not realized that art could be hype - that art didn't need to be  about technical expertise or embedded creativity. It could be about ideas represented in some visual media.

Some time in the late 1990s I went to see a photo exhibition comprised of portraits of homeless people wearing clothes from "Gap". I don't remember what the photographer was trying to achieve, what he was trying to convey, but I guess I got it right. What I saw was a bunch of photos of homeless people wearing clothes from "Gap".

And it was around then that I figured that Marshall McLuhan was spot on when he said in 1964 that "the medium is the message". The Gap homeless exhibition and the Piss Christ photo were really just about getting an idea and having the balls, confidence and connections, to realise it in a piece of self-referential object d'art art, before anyone else could think of it.

Serrano's latest piece of art is a collection of signs that he purchased from homeless people in New York - usually paying $20 a piece. He cleverly titled the collection "Signs of the Times". You can read his take on it in The Guardian's - A Creative Times Report - "I purchased 200 signs from homeless people in New York City. ... I call this piece a collection because that's what it is, a collection, and I’m the collector. But I’m also an artist and I’ve made my collection a work of art"

Apparently he wasn't the first person to think up the idea of collecting homeless people's signs, but somehow he didn't know about the ones that came before, and so wrote about his achievement in The Guardian as if he were the first person to conceive it.

By now you are probably wondering why I have chosen to illustrate this post with drawings of people. Well one person - in different guises. They are Facebook profile pictures that my brother Tim drew. Over a period of three months he uploaded the drawings, one by one with about a week in between,  in the sequence you can see here. I decided to put them together and put them in one of my blog posts,  and then I had an idea.

I do hope that it is a first.

 I remembered reading that Mark Zuckerberg got the idea for Facebook from American university year books - paper books published annually which included photos of the students' faces - hence "Facebook". My idea is to turn Zuckerberg's idea on its head - or  should I say, face.

I plan to make a paper book of Facebook profile images. Of course I will ask permission of the the owners of the images,  and I  will not do an Andres Serrano, offering $20 for each sign and exhibiting them,  without even attributing the signs to the homeless people who had made  them.

But I WILL make a book, a paper book. Of course I won't be able to call it Facebook. I can't call it anything with the word "face" in it,  as I am certain Mr Zuckerberg would complain. But I do have a few ideas as to what I will call my work of art. However right now it's under wraps.

The only clues I will give is that it is self-referential, backwardly compatible, intuitive,  and no homeless people will be used in its production.

 Stay tuned!

On creators and builders and being cool

Yesterday, a child came out to wander
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star - Joni Mitchell, "The Circle Game", 1968

Well let me tell you 'bout the way she looked
The way she'd act and the colour of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she's not there - The Zombies, "She's Not There", 1964
 

The Cool Factor

Do you know what a creator is? A creator is someone who makes an idea. And then there are builders. A builder is someone who builds the idea. When I grow up, I want to be a creator AND a builder."

This from a child who looked to be about eight, on the M15 bus, sitting next to a little girl who looked to be slightly younger.

Perhaps the child was just parroting a teacher, but I think not. He was just being cool. Manhattan-eight-year-old-cool.

I have thought a lot about "being cool" lately. I used to think it was merely used as an affirmation. As in, "Let's meet around seven?" "Cool." " I just bought another pair of reading glasses." "Cool!".

People around my age used to use the word "cool", meaning hip, and it was applied to people who had read books like Kerouac's "On the Road" and who went to Igmar Berman movies which were called "films" by the seriously cool.

It was sort of easy to be cool back then, especially if you were a girl. You just had to hang around with the cool crowd and you sort of became cool by association. You didn't atually have had to read "On the Road", you just had to know it was a book.

Eventually I grew up and forgot about "cool". Until I had kids and they went from babies to children and started using "cool" as an affirmation when they were very young.  Saying cool" as in "Yes" or "OK". "Do you want an icecream?" "Cool". "It is time to go to kindergarten." "Cool".

I only just found out about the recycled meaning when a young Australian friend visited me in Manhattan last month, and explained contemporary cool to me.

It can now be used in its old meaning - of  " hip"  -  not necessarily meaing  "OK" or "I agree".  It can mean something more like 1960s "cool". Both meanings are now in use. "Those shoes are so cool!" "Cool!"

I could have missed its recycled meaning altogether. I could have remained an unenlightened old person wearing Sarah Palin type reading glasses. Scary!

It  was a little sad to learn that  people of my generation - people  who were definitely "cool"  in the sixties - are now mostly "uncool".

Yes, during my friend's visit I discovered what I have secretly suspected for some years - that I am definitely NOT "cool".

For a start I watch CNN for the news. Uncool. I knew that.  But it is easy - "news candy" for the unlenlightened old people.

And then there was the matter of my reading glasses. I already knew mine were "uncool" so I snuck off and bought new ones from the West Village cool reading glasses place, "Moscot".

I was pretty pleased with myself and I was suitably rewarded with a "They are so cool!" from my young friend. She even iMessaged me (see above) a cool person face that she photographed on my  very own TV which was now tuned into MSNBC instead of the uncool CNN.

The iMessaged face was no other than that of  Malcolm Gladwell, though at the time I had no idea who he was. But my young friend explained that the face was cool because it was wearing cool  glasses like my new ones, and it was not to be inferred that the person himself was cool.

I threw my old uncool glasses away. No bad thing - they were starting to look like Sarah Palin's glasses. Heaven forbid.

Though one never knows - I am so sick of Obama and his Obamacare fiasco that maybe ... no no no. Never in a thousand years. But one can never tell. Maybe voting Republican will become the new cool.

My young Australian friend left but I  stayed true to my new cool self  -  tuned in to MSBN -  being cool.

Then a few days ago I cheated and turned on CNN. I felt like an ex-alcoholic falling off the wagon. I poured a wine and tuned in to Anderson Cooper on CNN. And sat, my eyes transfixed.

There on the TV was  the not-neccessarily-cool person, complete with my glasses,  being interviewed by Anderson Cooper. It was then that I found out his name. Malcolm Gladwell. I double-checked the messages on my iPhone. Yep the same chap.

I'd never even heard of him. Apparently he lives not so very far from me in Manhattan. He doesn't have a doorbell and writes all his novels and articles in cafés. At least one of his books is on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Not only had I found the out whose face my young friend had messaged, but there he was actually talking about being "cool". "People assume when my hair is long that I am a lot cooler than I actually am," he said with a laugh. "I am not opposed to this misconception, by the way, but it is a misconception."

Cool.

So there you go - I had never even heard of the guy. So cool he is un-cool. Or is it the opposite?  So un-cool that he is cool?

I'm not sure, but I have sneaking suspicion that NOT writing  books that have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List is even cooler.

An Australian Dinner Party in Manhattan

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you ;- Lesley Gore but the Bryan Ferry version is better!

Joseph's face was black as night
The pale yellow moon shone in his eyes
His path was marked
By the stars in the southern hemisphere
And he walked his days
Under African skies - Paul Simon, "Under African Skies"

Blah Blah Blah Realty Upper East Side

I hadn't been to a dinner party in Manhattan - well not a "real one" that is. Not what us Aussies would call a "dinner party".

I have been to one Sedar, to a birthday in a restaurant, and to a weird gathering on the Upper West side.

Probably the gathering on the Upper West Side was the closest I've come to an Australian dinner party - Aussie only in the sense that we were all gathered around one table and a central theme evolved. On pets.

One of the guests was passing around a photo in his wallet, of his pet parrot. No to be one-upped another guy at the party actually called his pet cat from his cell phone.

But no one laughed or made sarcastic remarks. Every one was very polite. "So cute your little birdie!" "What a clever cat!"  Fortunately the "party" only lasted one hour. Nah, not anything LIKE an Australian dinner party - too short, no arguments, and the guests were unfailingly  polite to each other.

In the past decade,  I've only been to two Australian dinner parties.

The first one was in Australia, in 2009 when after sixty minutes into the gathering, guests somehow got involved in discussing Catholicism and Protestantism - the central theme which one was better. All authentic Australian dinner parties have themes. Themes that are unplanned, but are themes never the less.

I'm not sure what "side" I was on. at the Catholic-Protestant dinner  party. I didn't want to be lumped in with the English - no way could I support those responsible for the potato famine in Ireland over a century ago. But I was brought up to be an anti-Catholic agnostic. I vaguely remember trying to be neutral, but that didn't work. You have to take a side in Australian dinner party debates.

I have a memory of going to the back yard - leaving them all to argue, while I looked up at that beautiful midnight-ink dark antipodean sky lavishly sprinkled with stars - that beautiful generous sky that can only be seen in the southern hemisphere.

Back in Manhattan, I'd given up expecting to go to an Australian dinner party outside of Australia.

And then, quite suddenly it happened - I landed in an Australian dinner party, in the heart of Manhattan.  At the Members-only dining room in the Metropolitan Museum of Art - which boasts "full waiter service of contemporary American cuisine in a sophisticated, elegant setting with expansive views of Central Park."

Season of Mists - Fall in Manhattan

It started off as a genteel gathering  the family members, two women and a man - all Australian - who were having a Manhattan evening, with their niece,  my friend who is also a fellow New Yorker. It was their last evening in New York before rejoining their cruise.

My friend had chosen the venue - we both like it for its over-the-top elegance - un-Manhattan-like with plenty of room between tables, flatware (how I love American for cutlery) that is not re-used between courses, waiters who keep a discreet distance while you read the menu whose contents are in reverse proportion to its physical size.

There we were -  five Aussies  making polite conversation. You know the sort of stuff - "How long have you lived in New York?" "Are you enjoying the cruise,?" "How did you and Michelle meet?

We'd almost forgotten  that we were there to eat, when one of the head waiters materialized. "Would you like to see the menu?" The sole male member of the gathering, in thick Aussie accent replied. "Well you've taken bloody long enough mate."

I instantly warmed to the stranger from the cruise  who was sitting on my left. I was transported to that happy place down under where  people call a spade a shovel. Even the sky over Central Park which I could view through the Members' dining room windows - even the sky seemed to have more stars.

We ordered wine for starters,  began to relax  and  become - Australian.

I remember I discussed men, with the elegant family-member-from-the cruise who was sitting opposite. She didn't think much the Australian culture of "mateship". Me neither, We were chatting away when her husband - the one who had made the crack to the head waiter - butted in. In true Australian fashion he sided with his mates, 12,000 miles away.

"A man has to support his mates!" he opined. "Not so!" the women cried. "Not so!"

The food arrived. "Too rare!" complained the elegant woman opposite, who had ordered duck. "It's meant to rare." "Not THAT rare!" On and on we went,  arguing about whether duck should or should not, be served rare.  We all had different opinions. There was no stopping us. Rare, medium rare, done, well-done, burned. There were as many varieties as there were people at the table. And then, from the pro-mateship man, "If you don't like it send it back."

Which she did. And them marched off to the restroom. "She always orders duck, and always complains! Every time" said the pro-mateship man. We sat stunned. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Bloody positive," he answered.

The conversation meandered back to how mates should stick together. Why  many women don t like the mateship . Mateship, the underlying concept that the Australian nation is built on.

I stared out the window at the stars which were multiplying minute by minute. I could be anywhere, Balwyn , Carlton, Perth, Adelaide. Even, yes, even Castlemaine.

A little bit of Australian in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What could be better than that?

You can read more on Australian dinner parties HERE.

Reaching Out and Conversating

And spring became a summer
Who'd believe you'd come along
Hands
Touching hands
Reaching out
Touching me
Touching you - from "Sweet Caroline" Neil Diamond, 1969

Glasses Through Glass - Moscot on West 14th

When did I first hear someone say, "That's a first world problem"?

If I could place it in relative time, it'd be before I had seen "Inbox me!" and definitely after I had heard "conversating" an action word - or verb as we used to say - from the noun "conversation".

Conversating is all about flexibility, and barely a week goes by without a new word or phrase being adopted into American English.

Lately it is all about "reaching out", which I believe is an East Coast sort of thing. Just as West Coast people started the "sharing" thing - "Thank you for sharing", East Coast people now talk of "reaching out".

You "reach out" to someone who isn't there, but who you want to talk, inbox or conversate with, some time in the near future. You could also use "reach out" if you wanted someone else to inbox a third party.

Although you might think could just as easily use the verb "contact", as in "Please contact Emma tomorrow" - that'd sound a bit too in your face. "Reaching out" is softer, more caring. Just as "sharing" is softer than "telling".

These "reaching out" and "sharing" things are all very First World.

Third World people in America say quaint things like "tooken". As in "I had tooken my car to the gas station when you called me." I kinda like it. For some reason it conjures up hobbits and New Zealand airline safety announcements. Tooken, Tolkien, all very hobbitish.

I love the way Americans dream up new words, make verbs of nouns, and nouns from verbs.

Mosgot on 14th

It is very freedom of speech. I used to think "freedom of speech" had something to do with democracy - I didn't know it was about grammar and lexicons.

Freedom of speech is taken very seriously in New York.

I was having my hair washed at JeanFerrSalon.com on 14th today when I heard the unseen hair-washer-person behind me talking. Not being able to see her or to work out what she was saying - I was lying back with my hair dangled in the basin - I asked her what she had said. "I am talking to myself!" the disembodied voice came back.

And then more disembodied animated talk. "What was this?" I thought to myself. I am used to such people saying things like, "How was your day?" or "Are you going out tonight?" So I asked again if she was talking to me. It was awkward. She literally had my head in her hands and I was becoming anxious. I couldn't see her. The situation was becoming very Polanski à la 1968.

I was feeling edgy, uncomfortable, when the invisible person answered me, "Listen this is America and it is a free country and I can talk to myself if I want to!"

"I think I will leave NOW!" I said with pretend bravery; after all I had a hair full of foaming shampoo. ASIF I could walk down 14th Street looking like a mad woman.

And then, so New York - the customer at the basin next to me conversated. New Yorkers just cant let anything go without putting in their two cents. "Can you two stop arguing; let there be peace in this world!" Fair enough, OMG - all I had done was drop in for a cut and blow-wave! Excuse me for existing!

There might be freedom of speech, but there are limits. It is as if there is only a limited universe of words, so that if new words come in taking up space, old ones are assigned to the past. Like "gone" which has literally gone.

So it isn't "I had gone to school", but "I had went to school". I wonder if auctioneers are up to date with the current lingo. Do they end the bidding with "Going, going, went"?

And "dived". That has been replaced by the universal peace symbol. "She dove into the pool after Ethan had went." Which brings me back to the hair salon. There's an association I cant quite put my lips on. Aha - it is Bob Dylan and his "Motorpsycho Nightmare". How does it went?

Well, I don’t figure I’ll be back
There for a spell
Even though Rita moved away
And got a job in a motel
He still waits for me
Constant, on the sly
He wants to turn me in To the F.B.I.
Me, I romp and stomp
Thankful as I romp
Without freedom of speech I might be in the swamp

Which reminds me, it's late so I had better get wenting.

Stay tuned.

Thinking about the government

Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again - Bob Dylan "Subterranean Homesick Blues " 1965

Central Park Idyll

A hundred years ago - or was it only 38 - when Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, stood on the steps of Parliament House, Canberra and said, "Maintain your rage!"

Remembrance Day 1975, the same day and month that Australian bush ranger and folk hero Ned Kelly was hanged. November 11th - a day to remember the fallen.

The occasion of Gough Whitlam's speech on the steps of Parliament House in November 1975 was the dismissal of his government by the Australian Governor General.

There had been a deadlock in the parliament. The House of Representatives had passed the government's budget "the Supply Bill", only to have it blocked by the Senate where the governing party did not have a majority.

The Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, dismissed Mr Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister and appointed Mr Malcolm Fraser, the leader of the opposition in the House, as a caretaker Prime Minister.

The dismissal was the most dramatic event in the history of the Australian federation. For the first time, an unelected vice-regal representative had removed from office a government which commanded a majority in the House of Representatives.

A double dissolution election was held on December 13th 1975, at which the Whitlam Government was soundly defeated.

Australians who were around back then, remember that day November 11th, when the Governor General broke the deadlock. The Australian constitution allowed for other options, but Australians on both sides of the political spectrum did not countenance a shutting down of the government. It was unthinkable.

Here in America, this appears not to be the case - there is no way apparently for the current deadlock to be broken Instead the government is "turned off" until one side caves in, or a compromise is reached and the budget it passed by both house - Congress.

I couldn't' believe it when I first experienced it shortly after I arrived in America in 1995.

During a shutdown, federal employees are "furloughed" - sent home without pay. Federal employees are not the only ones affected - vendors who make a living selling sodas and hot-dogs near national monuments, ferry operators who used to take tourists to the Statue of Liberty, the stock market, people whose retirement savings are held in "401Ks", lots of people in America, and if it goes on much longer, much of the world.

The only way the deadlock can be broken is if there is a compromise. "A really good compromise is the one that leaves both sides equally dissatisfied" - a quote attributed to Winston Churchill.

Great! As well as the adverse effects on the stock market and people's retirement benefits, when the deadlock is finally broken, we are ALL going to be unhappy.

The only consolation is the the Tea Party people will be unhappier than everyone else. They unashamedly want small government. And you cannot get much smaller the zero.

But what I find even scarier than the shutdown, is the reaction of the people here. In Manhattan you would never know the government was shutting down. Life carries on, superficially at least, as normal. In Australia when the Senate refused to pass the budget - or "supply" as we call it in OZ, we were all horrified. And in any case the deadlock lasted a bare two weeks until a temporary government was appointed. And guess what was the first thing the new government did? That's right, they passed the budget.

For of course, it wasn't REALLY about the budget back in Australia in 1975, just as it isn't really about the Affordable Care Act here in the United States. It is about getting rid of the government.

Is this democracy? Not in my book. If it happened in Africa or the Middle East, we would all be horrified. After all WE live in a political stable society.

What was it called when governments were overthrown in the Middle East? "The Arab Spring"?

Guess we are now in the "America Autumn". Or should is say, "Fall"?

Nailing It

I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land. - "If I had a Hammer", Pete Seeger and Lee Hays 1949

There was a wild colonial boy, Jack Duggan was his name
He was born and raised in Ireland, in a place called Castlemaine
He was his father's only son, his mother's pride and joy
And dearly did his parents love the wild colonial boy - traditional Irish–Australian ballad 

Three New Yorkers - Upper East Side Manhattan

One of my earliest memories is of a man with beery breath telling my father that he - my dad that is - was an armchair socialist.

I remember finding it odd at the time - we didn't even  own any armchairs. In winter we all sat side by side on a huge gum tree log that was lying sideways across the lounge-room floor. One end would be stuck in the fire place where it smoldered - emitting a eucalyptus smell that mingled with the odor of burning scraps of leather that the armchair socialist had brought home from the shoe  factory where he worked.

When the fire burned down we all had to stand up and my dad would shove the log further into the fireplace so that its dying embers would fall off and along with a few scraps of leather, would ignite the end of  the now truncated log.  This family-time fiasco repeated itself, until the log was completely consumed, when a new one would take its place.

I don't know where we sat in summer. My childhood memories are a jumble, as my parents would split up and reunite changing towns, then cities, and at the end, even countries.

Later on, much later, I heard "armchair socialist" used again. At Melbourne University by old people. Well, older than me. The scrag end of the "beats", old guys about thirty would hang around university haunts, ogling young undergraduate girls and discussing politics over cheap reds with undergrad boys - for this was before Germaine freed us and we came to understand that we had been oppressed.

Armchair socialists - the pits. All talk and no action. I remembered my dad.

We grew up, left university. The armchair socialists, the beats and the hangers-on disappeared or died. Some became famous artists.  Others, prominent lawyers, replacing one kind of bar with a more salubrious one.

The armchair socialist label was replaced briefly by  "chardonnay socialist" -  there is even a Wikipedia entry: "Chardonnay socialist: a derogatory Australasian term for those on the political left with comfortable middle or upper-class incomes, tertiary education, and a penchant for the finer things in life, Chardonnay being a variety of white wine".Until the sales of the actual drink dropped off after its image was decimated by bogan Kim in the hugely popular TV comedy show, "Kath and Kim".

I had sort of forgotten about gum tree logs, armchairs and chardonnay socialists until a few weeks ago when I received an email from an old friend.

I had asked him about the Victorian (OZ) town of Castlemaine. And this is what he replied.

"...it [Castlemaine] is full of millennial hippies, but many middle class yuppies are infesting the place and has become "fashionable". Even reactionary, racist left wing federal court judges live there. Many bobos."

Bobos???? First I ever heard the word. I looked it up online. There were several very different meanings, but the one I though my friend meant was "bobo: a portmanteau of the words bourgeois and bohemian".

So that's where the chardonnay socialist were hiding out.

I will be in Castlemaine in a few weeks. I will be on the lookout for bobos. I'll try to take some photos of them in their apparently natural habitat.

Stay tuned.

Is This Narrative a Beat Up?

When you puzzle over why the elegant Huma Abedin is propping up the eel-like Anthony Weiner, you must remember one thing: Huma was raised in Saudi Arabia, where women are treated worse by men than anywhere else on the planet. - Maureen Dowd, Time to Hard-Delete Carlos Danger

Wiener - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
‎ Wiener dog, colloquial term for dachshund; wiener, a colloquial term for the human penis.'

"What is your narrative on your tarte flambée?" a judge will ask a contestant on the Food Channel. And if the contestant is to have a hope in hell of winning, she will give a 60 second sound bite about how her grandmother used to make her tarte flambée when she was ill in bed - the contestant that is - sitting in a rocking chair near the wood fire.

In such a case, the contestant could just have easily been asked, "What is your spin on your tarte flambée. But nowadays we don't say "spin" any more, we say "narrative".

"Narrative" appears to have become popular about the same time as "talking points". "Talking points" should not to be confused with "talking marks" which Americans used to describe quotation marks. "Talking points" are short statements designed to support one side taken on an issue. You can use talking points in a narrative.

Politicians are given "talking points" by their minders when they have to explain a narrative to the press.

What follows is my narrative on several narratives that have been much in the New York news of late. Each narrative has many talking points.

To put it plain English - I am about to tell you a story.

The man
I don't know how far the news of Mr Weiner's genitals has spread, but it is worth a mention, even if some of it is old news -  because I truly think it is one of the few stories that can aptly be labelled, "Only in New York".

Anthony Weiner,  a New York Congress member,  became political history in June 2011, after  he tweeted a photo his genitals on Twitter. What an idiot. Apparently he thought he was sending the genital photo to one of his online sexters.

He apologized and I cannot remember if he booked himself into a sex education or a computer  literacy class. Or both. He was all but forgotten.

The Comeback
Fast forward a few months and Anthony Weiner was back in the public eye. A reformed man. No more tweets. No more confusing the little envelope icon with the blue birdie. On April 10, 2013, Weiner said he would like to "ask people to give me a second chance.

It must have been the weather, for around the same time another pollie  (OZ for politician) returned to contest  another election.

Eliot Spitzer the former New York Governor who resigned five years ago  following a prostitution scandal, returned to New York politics when he announced his candidacy for the position of New York City comptroller.

I wonder what happened to the one who told fibs about being uncontactable because in the Appalachian mountains on a camping trip, when he was really somewhere in South America wooing a women on the banks of the Amazon.

He Just Couldn't Stop
But back to Weiner. New Yorkers are forgiving people and Weiner was doing well in the opinion polls. After all, what has sex to do with political prowess, and in any case he had supposedly overcome his predilection of showing women his genitals on the internet.

And then it came out - he hadn't stopped. Well he HAD stopped but not when he said he stopped. He had relapsed, but he was REALLY stopped now. New Yorkers took it on the chin. We were reminded of the salad days of the Clinton administration, when the worst thing a President could do was to not have sex with that woman. The past is the past. And nostalgia never out of fashion.

But He Hadn't
Weiner  was still at it, disguising himself with names like -  "Carlos Danger" -  sexting - tweeting, you name it.

The tabloid press was having a field day. "Weiner Exposed", "Weiner: I'll Stick It Out", "Hide The Weiner", "He's Got Some Balls", "Weiner's Long Hard Road Back", "Weiner Rises", "Weiner Exposed", "Weiner's Rise And Fall", Weiner Pulls Out", "Beat It!", "Erections have consequences". 

But I only did it with three women, Weiner explained. And the next day - well it was more than three - he couldn't remember how many.  With his wife supporting him, even going so far to blame herself for her husband's sexploits (she was too engrossed in her baby to pay him the sexual attentions he craved) Weiner stood firm.

End Of Story
Weiner's poll figures slumped. He slipped from front-runner to fourth. Or was it more than fourth. It was certainly more than third.

His loyal voters deserted him. His non-loyal ones went back to being non-loyal.

Mr Carlos Danger had done the unforgivable.

He had become BORING.

I Am A Million Years Old

All those years ago
You said it all though not many had ears
All those years ago
You had control of our smiles and our tears
All those years ago - George Harrison, "All Those Years Ago" 1981

Me to New York friend: "I saw that it was 120 degrees on the West Coast"
New York friend: "But I don't live on the West Coast."

"That break-up text can wait." - Poster from NYC's Safe Pedestrian campaign

The countdown - 13 seconds to cross

After a tough week, a bad news week, Egypt, the 19 firemen killed in the Arizona bush/wild fires, the travesty of the trial of George Zimmerman - the guy who shot a young black teenager through the heart because he "thought" he might be up to something - after the heat, the dog days of the first week of July in Manhattan ...

I turned on the tellie and flicked through my "favorites" channel. What was this?  "Four Hundred Blows" - the title rang a bell. Je me souvenais. Of course. The 1959 Truffaut movie. Or should I be PC à la Melbourne and say, "film".

Could it be so long ago? Over half a century?  Yes, although 1959 France probably equates to 1968 Melbourne, OZ.

And as is the case when you are a million years old, I started to reminisce. Back to just three months ago.

When I was in my home town of Melbourne. Trotters restaurant in Carlton April 2013. A four-of-us reunion. As I regarded my three friends, the wrinkles, the gray hair - all signs of age - faded away, and we were all - or at least for me - our 1969 selves - still cultured after all these years - well as cultured as one could be, in Melbourne in 1969.

The countdown - 5 seconds to cross

We'd come a long way. We exchanged memories over a wine - well those of us who could still drink - had wine. "Do you ever hear from P?" one of my friends asked. I paused and took a gulp of my riesling.

"P" and I had been lovers in 1969. And for twenty years or so, occasional correspondents as we moved  partners and continents.

And then some years ago we had "fallen out".

"No," I replied. "He doesn't like me anymore. I wrote about how I had just pretended to understand those French movies with sub-titles that we'd watched together in the sixties." "Not just Truffaut," I added.  "I didn't understand any of them, I just pretended."

"Didn't we all!" my friend exclaimed. "All those Bergman movies we sat through;  no one knew what they meant!"

I was relieved. So it wasn't just me. The other three nodded in agreement.

I was vindicated. Well if you can call being vindicated, having three million-old people in Trotters restaurant, Carlton, OZ agreeing with you.

And now I am back. Far away from Melbourne, back in the" land of me" - New York.

I love New York. Who couldn't? In New York I can watch Truffaut films without having to pretend to understand them. In New York I don't have to have empathy, to worry about what other people think. I take that back - yes one is meant to worry about other people, as long as they are a long long way away, like in Egypt, and then ... why worry about them?

I love the heat, the all-consuming dog day heat of Manhattan. I love Al Pacino, and on days like today where the heat steams off the cracked, unmaintained pavements, I can almost pretend I am where I should be. I don't have to pretend anymore. Who cares about French movies? Who cares about Egypt. Who cares about climate change? Well of course we all do. But as my friend at our lunch in Trotters, Carlton explained, "that doesn't mean we have to understand it." And even if I did care, there is no one to talk to about it to in New York anyway.

I love New York. And especially I love how it constantly surprises. Just when you think things can't get any worse, like it was for Dustin Hoffman in "Marathon Man", yes it can.

ASIF it wasn't hard enough getting around in this city, ASIF we aren't rushed enough, trying to get done in a New York minute what would take only one second anywhere else in this world ... the mayor or whoever runs this place has installed count-downs at intersections.

So instead of the pedestrian lights indicating 'Walk' or "Don't Walk", with little amber flickers as they change, we now have a countdown. The red "Don't Walk" sign changes to a number - '20', '10' - '0' - '8' - '7' and so on. Till zero.

Being a law-abiding kinda gal, I am suitably stressed.

Who can be thinking of Truffaut, of how it is so hot in Arizona, or how there is tumult in Egypt? After all, we aren't there.

N'est ce pas?