anonymous

One of the good things about having a blog is, well, if it's a diary kind of blog as opposed to one where you get AI to write your posts, and as we all know that is the future of blogging, and with luck soon only AI will read blogs anyway, and will rehash old bloggery into new content for the pleasure of other AIs, but anyway, if it's a diary kind of blog then you can be reminded of things you really could not even believe, much less remember. Like apparently about 15 years ago I was not only watching Doctor Who but watching it like a fan. Admittedly, a fan who might stop watching it at any moment (I guess I did, because now I barely even recall ever watching it, after, you know, 1975) but writing about it like someone who thought that to watch Doctor Who was to be a valuable participant in the zeitgeist. I mean WOW. 

I could link to that post but on the other hand, who cares. 

Laura and I are in Adelaide and we have been doing fieldwork all day, it's been really good. She has been the driver. It was a very productive day. Hot take: Mt Barker (SA) is not a bad town. I just remembered something funny. I was in the Christian op shop and the two ladies running it were talking about someone else. One lady: She just talked and talked. Other lady: Oh well of course she would because [completely ran the sentence into the ground because she realised I was there even though she had no idea who I was of course but she had basically forgotten she was in public I think]. It was funnier the way she did it though unfortunately but I've written it down the best I can and we can move on. 

in memoriam 21 september

So, another September 21 passes by. It has always been important to me, as the following entries from my various diaries show, and not only because of its vital use as a stopgap, or wedge or period of rest, between other dates in September the exact numerical delineations of which I am uncertain. It is also the birthdays of my friend Gavin Butler and my brother-in-law Robert Barrese.

To say I have kept a diary since 1994 is a piece of nonsense, but I have had appointments diaries since then and I have, literally, kept them (except, as you will see, 2006 which is AWOL). Here is what I did, or at least intended to do, on the past 15 September 21s.

1994 merely says ‘Masters – SS’ and the word ‘Masters’ is circled. I don’t think the Schutzstaffel were my masters then, that's a joke, a stupid one, but that is kind of what it looks like I'm saying in the diary. I don’t know what it means. I wasn’t planning to do masters at the University of Sydney, or anywhere, and that was the year before I graduated anyway. Ah! Looking back I see that the previous week is labelled ‘Porter/ Masters’ and a small line is coming out of ‘Masters’ to another phrase, ‘Rose Fancier’. I think this might have something (well, alright, everything) to do with the writer Olga Masters, and I was studying literature then, and 'SS' probably stands for 'short story', since Hal Porter and Olga Masters were both noted for writing in this form. I wonder if anyone teaches Hal Porter these days, something tells me his reputation has undergone a bit of a battering, for reasons largely but not entirely unrelated to his work. The 21 September 1995 entry is marked merely ‘Market’ and this (or something else) happened ’11:45 – 10ish’. I was going to work reshelving books at the Badham library 5-8 but I crossed that out, and instead did a shift 9-12 am the next day (I am assuming this was a rescheduled because the 22 September arrangement is double underlined as if to say, 'no, not 21 September 5-8, but 22 September 9-12). In 1996, by which time I had moved back to Melbourne, 21 September was - oh goodness, do you remember? - a Saturday, and my diary for that day features an ’11:00 show’ at Flinders Street (!?). 1997 there is a ‘grand final’* and ‘Canberra’ (where I was to be for three more days after that time). 1998 indicates nothing; I suppose I sat in suspended animation (or anticipation: the next day I received $237 from Rolling Stone); also in the other 1998 diary, which was one we used for phone messages, there is the circled word ‘rubbish’. 1999 – a big line from 12 to 6 pm with no explanation. 2000, a date to meet an historian of note at the Deakin University Burwood campus’ Café Plateau, and in the evening (or at least, under ‘notes’) The Dave Graney Show. 2001 is blank and indeed it is not for three days (Monday 24) that something happens: ‘Chapters 7+8’. Could mean anything. 2002- nothing (the day after, some essays due). 2003 – back from Heathcote but nothing special on that particular day, which was a Sunday. 2004 nothing. 2005 ‘recap tests’ for second year subject and that night it appears I had dinner (there might have been more to that story: a ‘W’ is crossed out). I can’t find my 2006 diary, so there’s a worry, for posterity at least. 2007 – I was in Adelaide for a conference; this entry also has prominently but for no apparent reason the address of a well-known 20th century architect who did not live in Adelaide. In 2008 there is nothing more than a reminder to be minding Kenzie. That reminder about minding reminds me to reproduce here and now Toby Dutton's impressive recent portrait of Kenzie right here and now:














And all of this brings us up to yesterday, the most recent 21 September we have had. I rode my new Huffy to work for the first time in a long time. It's not new, it's second hand, and I've had it for months, but it is mine, and it's tops. I felt very smart and important. It rained at night and it was a Monday. There you go.

* A week later, I realised this was the VFL grand final. In those days I was an ardent supporter of the Preston Knights. They didn't make the finals.

so it's hot so what

I hear they're doing it even tougher in Adelaide. Well, we get through heatwaves: that's what Australians do. The one we're presently taking on in Melbourne this week is purportedly the hottest week since 1908 (years only went a week in the good old days). I mistakenly thought, when I first heard this, that my 99 year old grandmother Mavis would be the only person I knew who could verify this, then realised that of course she is 99, not 100, so while she might have experienced it in utero, she basically didn't.

I suffer more in extreme heat because I am naturally a very warm person; it's most uncomfortable and sad for me, and however others feel it's usually worse for me (this is true of practically anything). Well, plus the car radiator seems to be massively overheating too (what do you need a radiator for in a car anyway?) which makes it nervous to drive. Tomorrow I am going to brave public transport, which is most likely going to mean going very early and coming back quite late (i.e. avoiding the crush at peak hour). Wish me luck. I know you can't help yourself whether you want to or not.

By the way, I drank all the soda water in Melbourne. Sorry about that.

yeah i did go to adelaide

I have not much more to say on that topic, having for some reason eschewed the conventional route of whingeing en blogue for the unusual outlet of whingeing to Mia about the extraordinarily slow anal retentive form-filling and jobsworthness of the State Library of SA employees (not all of them mind you just most) and the truly A P P A L L I N G photocopiers they have in that joint. Oh, and I also had complaints regarding the Chifley Hotel South Terrace but let it go, let it go. But I did get a lot of good material for my work purposes including extensive reportage of the work achieved by architect Chris Smith on the Moonta Town Hall, and I enjoyed being in Adelaide for a short time, though I definitely prefer regional SA. The next State History conference in SA is on the Yorke Peninsula - I am so there.

a few more pics from my recent travels

Including Bruce of Angaston, a piece of Angaston machinery, and two Adelaide-by-nite shots

state of play

Well, one great thing about today was that it was payday. I have been unfinancial for about a week now a situation partially related to waiting on a massive expenses claim. Which I am still waiting on but in the meantime I got paid for my hard work. I am savouring the moment right now and in fact have no intention of going on a spree unless you count dinner at some inner city hotel this evening to launch a young couple of our acquaintance on one of those international trips they seem to go on every two months, for 6 weeks at a time.

I have to don my flash overalls for a time and do some more digging, as (a) I want the hole to be dug and (2) I don't want those muscles, such as they are, to atrophy.

Fiona Negrin gave me a bunch of old fanzines, including some I did in the 80s, and it's been a really interesting read. I was particularly intrigued by reading a report I had done for someone else's fanzine about my trip to the UK in, I think, about 1990. It was interesting chiefly because I remembered nothing at all about the events related in the piece, though the events themselves were terribly boring (and I've already forgotten what they were - something about an argument I witnessed on a bus between a white woman and a black man, she was accusing him of stealing her sister's money or something). Also a few issues of the long-running Adelaide fanzine DNA which incidentally is still going. Actually, this is weird:

(1) Last week I was directed to a website which sold a few Australian rock books that looked interesting. I realised this was operated by Harry Butler, the editor of DNA
(2) On Wednesday on my way to Korean class I dropped in at Sticky to get the latest issue of Erinsborough exploits and on the top shelf were a bunch of recent issues of DNA
(3) Then I get these fanzines from Fiona and there are three issues of DNA

No offense at all meant to Harry Butler or his excellent publication, but I hadn't thought about him or it for years. Come to think of it how could that not be offensive? Except that if you always thought about everyone you ever met or knew of, you'd need an extra head. I would anyway.

Now I am listening to the La Femme album. I can't remember why I never got this the first time around but it is really, really good except the crappy 'I wanna be your man' which I think we could all do without.