Profound displacement
29 Nov: “Writing complex topics” panel
3 weeks ago
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Flying High
We hid indoors on Boganday... after seeing some non-ironic Schappylle Scragg clones strolling around Parkville on saturday night -complete with aussie flag shoulder drapes, we weren't gonna leave the house.
Instead Boganday came to us - and we felt our innards tremble as the williamstown jet squad did their top gun style tribute... but forntuately it was brief... and coincided with the meditative morning coffee on the brown velvet armchair, which led me to ponder.....
what a bloody fitting memorial to Invasion day it was - I mean the weird air-borne military salute. Bogan day is based on the commemoration of a bunch of blighty's finest stepping ashore at circular quay and declaring it "terra nullius" or empty land.
Today I read in a book that the sesquicentenary of invasion day was commemorated in sydney by a re-enactment of the landing of Arthur Phillip & co - including apparently a made up speech by the actor playing ye olde governor..... since no-one could remember what he actually said.
It kind of reminded me of the crucifixion re-enactment at Darling Harbour - which i think is one of the most briliantly kitsch things I've seen in a long time.... I guess this is what happens when people buy too much Franklin Mint..... they cross the line of kitschness that goes straight into high farce.....
anyway - I'm trying to write my mini-definitive account of modernism - which is meant to be a deconstructive geneaology more than a neat narrative..... and I've drafted and redrafted and chopped and changed and gotten waylaid with endless searches for footnotes, and I still think it reads like a dogs breakfast, and I'm really sick of my thesis, and I'm sick of the heat, and sick of everything.
And my brain has stopped functioning like it used to, and I wonder if i'll ever get it back, and if I'll ever finish this bloody tome.
Instead Boganday came to us - and we felt our innards tremble as the williamstown jet squad did their top gun style tribute... but forntuately it was brief... and coincided with the meditative morning coffee on the brown velvet armchair, which led me to ponder.....
what a bloody fitting memorial to Invasion day it was - I mean the weird air-borne military salute. Bogan day is based on the commemoration of a bunch of blighty's finest stepping ashore at circular quay and declaring it "terra nullius" or empty land.
Today I read in a book that the sesquicentenary of invasion day was commemorated in sydney by a re-enactment of the landing of Arthur Phillip & co - including apparently a made up speech by the actor playing ye olde governor..... since no-one could remember what he actually said.
It kind of reminded me of the crucifixion re-enactment at Darling Harbour - which i think is one of the most briliantly kitsch things I've seen in a long time.... I guess this is what happens when people buy too much Franklin Mint..... they cross the line of kitschness that goes straight into high farce.....
anyway - I'm trying to write my mini-definitive account of modernism - which is meant to be a deconstructive geneaology more than a neat narrative..... and I've drafted and redrafted and chopped and changed and gotten waylaid with endless searches for footnotes, and I still think it reads like a dogs breakfast, and I'm really sick of my thesis, and I'm sick of the heat, and sick of everything.
And my brain has stopped functioning like it used to, and I wonder if i'll ever get it back, and if I'll ever finish this bloody tome.
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