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Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
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ichi
ni
san
Lest we forget
Dulce et Decorum est
… If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori*.
(*Sweet and proper it is to die for one’s country)
Wilfred Owen 1918
Men in Green
And when on Dobadura’s field
We landed, each man raised
His thumb towards the open sky;
But to their right I gazed.
For fifteen men in jungle green
Rose from the kunai grass
And came towards the plane. My men
In silence watched them pass;
It seemed they looked upon themselves
In Times’s prophetic glass.
Oh, there were some leaned on a stick
And some on stretchers lay,
But few walked on their own two feet
In the early green of day …
Their eyes were bright, their looks were dull;
Their skin had turned to clay.
Nature had meet them in the night
And stalked them in the day.
And I think still of men in green
On the Soputa track,
With fifteen spitting tommy-guns
To keep the jungle back.
David Campbell
Im Westen Nicht Neues
[Als Paul Bäumer, letzter der Gruppe von 15 Schulkameraden im Oktober 1918 an einem Tag fällt] “Der Heeresbericht sich nur auf den Satz beschränkte, im Westen sei nichts Neues zu melden”*.
On the day Paul Bäumer, last of a group of 15 schoolmates, falls in October 1918, the army report concentrates on limited reality “On the Western [Front} there is nothing new to report.”
Erich Maria Remarque
Oops/ Moderator -Please change the 25 on the 2nd last line to 15.
[Done - Admin]
For those who want a different view from the ‘front’ in 1915 scroll a fair way down the page at the attached link and read the remarkably subversive “Our Friend, The Enemy”.
http://www.firstaif.info/anzac-book/page/section04.htm
Makes a sobering reminder that our forebears were neither as jingoistic nor as remote from us as we are sometimes led to believe.
The fact that even the title got past the censor speaks something about Australian attitudes to ANZAC at the time.
I was woken about 6 am this morning by the sound of distant drums somehere in the centre of Armidale about 3 or 4 klms from where I live on the edge of town. Just sayin’.
Now, to Q&A last Thursday night. Where I discovered to my shock and horror Julie Bishop was about ten times more ill-mannered than John Elliott? Aren’t these suposed to be the people with, well, refined taste. Eliott inspired me to break into print :
http://beingahistoryheadandotherthings.blogspot.com/2009/04/on-politeness-sensibility-and-men-of.html
But Julie Bishop just makes me so mad I’m not game to put pen to paper.
(btw I thought I had worked out this linking stuff – I made a successful link of a newspaper article on my blog the other day. What have I done wrong here, if youse don’t mind me troubling you? Again!
Correction to 7 – I did make a successful link (I think) – I just didn’t realise it.
PB.
I’m enjoying the rain were’ having.
I’ll probably go and see some movies tomorrow, I’d like to see “Let the Right One In”. I might also check out the wildlife photography show at the SA Museum.
Also, for anyone in Adelaide there is a screening of Garbage Warrior on [Sunday 26th at 6.30PM] at the Mercury cinema to raise money for Habitat for Humanity..specifically, I think it’s for some students who are going to Nepal to build houses.
I was just looking through some photos and notes from my trip. There is an exhibit on biodiversity in the Museum of Natural history in NYC, it included some interesting statistics: the US has 43% of the worlds plant ecologists and 7% of the worlds plant species. Central and South America has 1% of the worlds plant ecologists and 38% of the worlds plants species. Australia, if anyone is wondering, has 6% plant ecologists, 11% plant species.
If I leave now I’ll run headlong into a march, which will bring tears to my eyes that I won’t understand. I’ll put off my trip up-town a while.
I saw a story on the 7.30 report about a local ‘lad’ from Blackall, Queensland, Edgar Towner, a decorated hero, who after many a heroic and harrowing deed, made it back to town, but sadly never back to happiness. At the age of 65, circa 1955, they lobotomised him to put an end to his severe depression.
IMHO, Anzac Day should be observed, but surely it rubs salt (or did) into wounds that most Anzacs, seemed to want to try and forget. I guess its not such a big issue now they are all dead.
Remembrance Day should be the public holiday, the one we make a song and dance about. The day that commemorates the end of war.
Is it problematic that we have these discussions every year? That there are people of all political persuasions who see it as an opportunity to make a point about something they, I presume, feel passionate about? That is, in part, what the day symbolises to me…that I live in a country that continues to struggle with these notions of identity. Let Anzac Day remain as it is, and let the discussion continue, we’re good at it. geez.
PB@7 – I didn’t notice Julie Bishop being particularly rude – what I did notice was the frozen half-smiles on the faces around the panel for two whole minutes while the excruciatingly boring P J O’Rourke, like a senile uncle, repeated an old chestnut – the exact same story having been in the press and television interviews in the preceding few days.
Three years ago we woke up to the sound of chainsaws as Maningrida began the mammoth task of cleaning up after extreme Category 5 Cyclone Monica, the strongest cyclone ever recorded on the mainland of Australia.. No dawn service that day. I’ve started a series of short videos using footage from our old mate Mason Scholes who is still working there.
The first is at Cyclone Monica 24 April 2006 – Maningrida
Adam: If you want listen to something that will make you throw things, go to the Radio National site and listen to PJ O’Rourke on counterpoint the other day. I nearly drove off the road…
Adam Tucker @ 12,
yes, P. J. O’rourke was a bit of a pain. (I think I heard one of his stories on Lateline or the 7,30 Report a few weeks ago.
Bishop was continually interrupting, trying to stay on message for the Opposition, turning her back on David Marr. Most, though probably not all, of the Labor people on Q & A haven’t been too bad (for politicians) but the Libs just seem to lose it. It’s like they all come on holding up a big sign, reading “Look at me! I exist.” or “You goofed when you voted in Labor and I ain’t gunna let you forget it.”
Paul @ 7 Enjoyed your blog post, but can’t figure out how to post a comment, as I don’t fit any of the criteria (don’t even have a URL), so I’m posting it here:
Good post, Paul!
I refuse to watch it, for fear of smashing the TV & falling into apoplectic rage.
Liberals still seem not to realise that electorates here & in the USA are soo over the aggressive-abusive lying Karl Rove-Dick Cheney approach.
BTW: The original of the blue coated, hair unpowdered (& torn by writhing fingers) wallowing-in-emotions Man of Feeling is Young Werther, in the original cult novel, Goethe’s 1770 “The sorrows of Young Werther” – so over the top that it’s hard to read now through gales of laughter. Europe’s Young Bucks adopted his clothing, mannerisms & unfettered emotions. Napoleon always carried a copy (inc to Waterloo). Byron & Co fell in love with the tortured, angst-ridden heroic image – Shelley even fell in love (fatally) with wild Italian storms; tho most Brits seemed to share Jane Austen’s attitude!)
DeeCee@18,
I’ve posted a reply on my blog. You need to open a Google or other account to log in a coment. All you need is an e-mail address and a password so far as I can work out, and it took me months to do it properly. The trials of modern technology.
They died to keep Turkey British.
Eh?
Byron died of pneumonia after swimming a river in a feat of unnecessary heroics somewhere in Greece. And he was fighting against the Turks to make Greece independent last I heard. As for the rest of them. Pommy playboys acting up on Lake Geneva, I reckon. (Though they did inspire Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and popularise vampires.) And then, there was the poetry. Ah, the poetry.Now that IS something.
Strangely enough, ANZAC Day went unnoticed here in Tokyo.
It’s funny but my mother said to me the other day, why do all the Labor type people come off sounding rational, logical and sympathetic on Q&A yet the Liberals are all hysterical, irrational, bullying and rude? A few of her friends who are staunch Liberal party voters are exactly the same and she hates it whenever politics come up in conversation for how rabid her friends become.
I said “mum, they’re just desperate for attention and basking in their irrelevancy and oh they’re crazy too!”
The performances of Bishop, Hockey, Coonan and to a lesser extent Costello come to mind.
Maybe they’d benefit from more behind the scenes factional biffo? perhaps in the absence of a vigorous internal debate, it all happens in the public arena.
O’Rourke may be a source of mirth and comfort for the Right but he is as funny as a bag full of oysters.
Thanks Paul @18
Ah, the poetry! Rebellious youth’s eternal anthem:
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
I sold generations of car-mad industrial Blokes-in-the-making & Blokettes on Bysshe via “kicked out of Oxford”, “married his 1st wife to ‘save her from parental tyranny’(threw herself in the Serpentine & drowned)”, “seduced by Mary Frankenstein Wollstonecraft-Godwin – daughter of Bill Political Justice & Mary Rights of women – on her mother’s tomb”, “drowned at sea during a storm (probably declaiming the aforementioned Ode)” … 500 words (in decent English) on whom you’d cast as Percy B in a film & why … Young Brando? James Byron Dean (the middle name is for real)? John Lennon, Mick Jagger … Ah, one could follow the generations in the answer! Major assignment: “Track & analyse the same themes in recent music, films, etc” (By that time, most of them were hooked … Ya gotta be devious!)
Heath Ledger?
Why has there never been a decent bio film of Bysshe & Co? Too R rated?
PS: Love English Bards & Scotch Reviewers
DeeCee,
There was a BBC drama on Byron, recently, about 2 years ago I think. There is a movie on Coleridge and Wordsworth and another movie on the night that inspired Frankenstein – a Ken Russell movie I think, but I’m not sure, and I think its called Gothic. And a long time ago (the late 60s or early 70s I think, somewhat appropriately) there was a movie about Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb called Lady Caroline Lamb, with Richard Chamberlain as Byron and Susannah York as Lady Caroline.
Did we all hear about Sally Warhaft’s resignation as editor of The Monthlydue to alleged interference by the editorial board (chaired by Robert Manne)?
http://www.theage.com.au/national/editor-of-monthly-departs-in-protest-20090424-ai4b.html
Did indeed Leon.
Word of warning about that pieice: Gideon Haigh and Sally Warhaft are an on and off romantic item. Without knowing much else about what happened – i feel that ought to be factored in to assessing the anti-Manne tone of the report. Wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it – but Haigh weighs in on one side without that disclosure.
Incidentally, who likes my idea for an alcohol & pub review magazine: “Piss Weekly”?
Geraldine Doogue had her sanctimonious hat on yesterday morning on RN – excoriating friends who had wished her “Happy Anzac Day” (I’m sure larrikin diggers wouldn’t mind in the least from the hereafter). “How inappropriate on a day of mourning”, she said. What a shame Gerrie couldn’t inhibit her urge to let everyone know that she had made the A-list, by telling us all – well after the fact – that she was enjoying a garden afternoon at Cruden Farm with Dame Elisabeth Murdoch while the Victorian bushfires were burning people just to the north. This “I had a Happy Black Saturday” was not over-ridden by any decency on Gerrie’s part. Naturally it is not an issue that she was there – no-one knew what was happening. But she had ample time to weigh up whether a crass name-dropping was a wise thing to do.
#27 “Piss Weekly.” Brilliant. Where do I buy a copy?
“#27 “Piss Weekly.” Brilliant. Where do I buy a copy?”
A Pooper Shop?
“Piss Weekly” Wasn’t that the first chapter of “Kidney Stones for Fun and Profit”
DeeCee, Jane Campion has just completed a biopic about Keats and Fanny Brawne called ‘Bright Star’. It’s in competition in Cannes. And I’m rapt that Warwick Thornton’s film ‘Samson and Delilah’ is in Un Certain Regard in Cannes.
Geraldine Doogue – I can’t stand her sanctimonious prefect manner.
Geraldine Doogue – on second thoughts, I better shut up.
Sounds good LeftyE. My idea was for a mini-brewery out in the back shed with about 100 brewers kits ie 100 x 25 litres. Two brands. “Piss” and the low alcohol version, “Piss Weak”
An ‘on and off romantic item’? You make my personal life sound so interesting. I’ll correct this canard again. Sally Warhaft and I did not have a personal relationship for the duration of her editorship of The Monthly, and I’m now married to someone else. ‘Piss Weekly’ sounds about as high as you should aim, Lefty E.
Then Piss Weekly it is, mes amis!
And I can assure you, Gideon, that if I keep it off me shoes, I generally feel Ive aimed high enough.
Rockstar Philosopher @ 14, if you had that reaction to hearing PJ O’Rourke on Counterpoint, wait until this week when you’ll hear Ian Plimer.
Anyone read Bob Ellis’s little bit of triumphalism in Fairfax week-end magazines? I’m certain most here would agree with the sentiments but consider the poor quality of this adolescent diatribe. Aren’t you the least bit unhappy that such a mediocrity speaks for you?
.
The argument didn’t even make much sense.
As for the rest of them. Pommy playboys acting up on Lake Geneva, I reckon. (Though they did inspire Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and popularise vampires.) And then, there was the poetry. Ah, the poetry.Now that IS something.
.
Ever read Shelley’s novel Obviously both the work of a teenager and a genius. Pretty much standard gothic novel stuff – old castles with dungeons, beautiful, mysterious, amoral aristos with dark secrets. Wells, stallions and stormy weather. But the prose is stunning!
.
Mary’s book’s the only thing that came out of Switzerland that was any good. But she wasn’t as great as her mama.
Bob Ellis has never spoken for me, Adrien. He seems a childish ranter. Could he by any chance be affected by the Demon Drink?
Re Gideon Haigh et al: is Robert Manne still suffering from Quadrant-deprivation? Has Peter Craven got over his Quarterly-Essay-deprivation?
Adrien,
Thanks for that. If I get time I’ll hunt it up. (Always too much reading to do and never enough time to do it.) Much appreciated.
(I didn’t mind Polidori’s vampyre story, but I suppose that’s more important for what its a precursor of than anything else.)
DeeCee:
Wonder if reading the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Sigfried Sassoon might become a compulsory prerequisite for pre-selection by the political parties. Let me know if it ever happens. I’m patient.
Marks:
Liked your link to “Our Fiend, Our Enemy”. Never heard it before. Good one.
The Enemy is never a bad fellow in the eyes of his own family and neighbours. Those who refuse to recognize that deserve all the defeats and disgrace they get.
When all is said and done .. sheesh, doncha just lurve that cliche? Much has been said about the origins of ANZAC day – and it will be discussed (hopefully) long after i’m dead.
Some locals thought (believed?) that they belonged to a “wider Empire” .. until Gallipoli. Am not an academic, nor “historian”, but it seems to me that the lads suddenly discovered that “Ye Olde British Generals” didn’t quite understand “Australia”. And so, military attitudes changed. We demanded and were allowed “our” Generals, “our” style of warfare. Carried through to the “Western Front” village of …
THAT, to me, is what ANZAC day is all about.