This is

the year of the snake.

I was born in a year of the snake many years ago.

Kinda ironic, since, after my experiences up here, I'm now paranoid about them.

This flood,

unlike the others we've seen
over the past five years

Photo: Chris Ison / The (Rockhampton) Morning Bulletin
was full of dead fish.

"Queensland's Environment Minister says the deaths of thousands of fish in the flooded Fitzroy River in central Queensland were due to natural causes . . .water releases from coal mines are not responsible for the deaths."

Photo: Alice Roberts, ABC News
One word:

bullshit.

Out from Otoliths—Martin Edmond's Eternities

Now out from Otoliths.

Eternities
Martin Edmond
6" x 9"
64 pages, illustrated
Otoliths, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9872010-7-2
$14.45 + p&h
URL: http://www.lulu.com/shop/martin-edmond/eternities/paperback/product-20612650.html

Martin Edmond's Eternities is at once memoir, belle lettrist in a kind of Modernist French tradition, lyric prose poetry, literary criticism. He is a chronicler of lost and discarded sacred things, people, places—Tempe Velodrome, the Manzil Room, the Wet Taxis playing at the Britannia Hotel. The writing frequently builds a pathos that often leads to grieving, grieving for lost youth and ruined possibilities. The paradox is that the romantic desire for the ideal can be realized in dreaming. Edmond is so authentic you can believe every anecdote he tells, partly because he puts himself and the reader at the scene of real crimes and with novelist’s skills re-enacts their immediate horror. Meticulous research underpins the mythic dreaming and the constant resurgence (via mechanisms of memory, portents-reading, and hallucination) of the uncanny, seeping, if you like, out to the detritus of past time. The intertextual transcends the dull mechanics of postmodern technique, emerging epically as the Koran, the Tora, Aztec lore and old Testament parable populated with hitherto uncelebrated gypsies, thieves, dream-chasing hippies, and murderers. The book rolls with humanity, a secularized laughter and magic. Not theological at all, but as powerful as re-incarnation and pagan idol worship; such profound depth to even the most innocuous recollections. Perhaps it is Edmond’s expat origins, a New Zealander who has made Sydney crueler, kinder, more exotic and more magical than it ever could be on its own: . . . in those moments some ineffable translation happens, some occult adjustment of soul, some realignment of possibilities, after which he is profoundly changed. And all else too. It is as the book says—the redeemed world will be the same but not as this is. It’s theology without god. It’s nothing. Everything. —Adam Aitken

Martin Edmond’s bohemian travels documented within these prose pieces are eternities made manifest in run-down flats, movie sets and, along with other jobs, toiling on the night shift at the post office among fellow poets, painters, musicians and other variously assembled creatures of the night. Here is a writer with abundant gifts. With a novelist’s eye for detail and a poet’s perfect pitch Martin Edmond lives the life of the writer who takes ecstatic possession of every living moment. Within these pages the writer asks, ‘can music banish a curse?’ You bet it can. —Richard Lopez

geographies: Charlevue

What's wrong with this sentence?

Crocodiles have been spotted swimming through the streets of Rockhampton as floodwaters continue to rise in the Queensland beef capital.

Otoliths #28 is now live

There is blue sky, it's very warm, but the river is due to peak later on today at major flood levels. The highways to the west & southwest are both cut, & the main highway south has only just reopened & is only passable with "extreme caution." There are minimal fruit & vegetables available apart from some local pineapples, fresh bread & milk are rationed to one loaf / container per customer at the local supermarket, eggs & meat are scarce, & bottled water & longlife milk are gone almost immediately they arrive. The fiber-optic cable & its backup connecting this part of the world with the southern parts of the continent were both washed away over the weekend which meant no internet or cell phone connectivity for several days, though they've now been restored.

But the USPS insists that the journal must go through. So, with no further fanfare, the summer, 2013 issue of Otoliths—#28—has just gone live, with work from Alexander Jorgensen, Paul Dickey, Felino A. Soriano, Alexandra Yurkovsky, Jim Meirose, Simon Perchik, nick-e melville, Tim Suermondt, Mark Melnicove, Adam Aitken, bruno neiva, Philip Byron Oakes, Dane Karnick, Howie Good, Walter Ruhlmann, John Crouse, M. Pfaff, John M. Bennett, William Garvin, Michael Farrell, Willie Smith, Jack Galmitz, Craig Scott, Raymond Farr, Carlyle Baker, Patrick James Dunagan, Sheila E. Murphy, Reed Altemus, Micah Cavaleri, Tom Beckett, Tony Brinkley, Bobbi Lurie, Tom Pescatore, Cecelia Chapman, Tony Beyer, Lakey Comess, George McKim, Steven D. Stark, Orchid Tierney, David Dick, Colin Herd, Michael Caylo-Baradi, Lee Slonimsky, Chris D'Errico, Susan Gangel & Terry Turrentine, Catherine Vidler, John Pursch, Stephen Nelson, Leigh Herrick, Jeff Harrison, Volodymyr Bilyk, Charles Freeland & Rosaire Appel, Márton Koppány, Alyson Miller, sean burn, Donna Fleischer, Bogdan Puslenghea, Paul Pfleuger, Jr., Joel Chace, Bob Heman, Scott Metz, Ed Baker, J. D. Nelson, Nicolette Wong, Michael Brandonisio, Lance Newman, Sam Moginie, Kit Kennedy, Samit Roy, Sam Langer, Aditya Bahl, Cherie Hunter Day, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, & Michael Gottlieb.

& never one to let the opportunity for a pun pass by, let's just say that this issue's come out under floodlit conditions.

Some years back,

maybe seven or so, we planted a number of pineapple tops in the garden.

Only a couple of them managed to take root, & for the time since then, only the leaves grew. We'd given up the idea of them fruiting.

Then, late last year, November-December, a flower appeared in the center of the plant to the right of the garden path, & gradually has taken on the familiar pineapple form.

& even later in December, the plant on the lefthand side of the path, perhaps prompted by the nearby activity, launched into bloom.

Am unsure, but I think they take about six or so months to get to the point of harvesting.

Broadband, mobile outages in wake of Queensland floods.

"Telstra has flown techicians in to repair a flood-damaged fibre optic cable between Gladstone and Bundaberg in Queensland that it says "carries much of the state's communications needs".

The telco said that severe flooding in Colosseum, about 72km south-east of Gladstone, had damaged the coastal cable. The flooding is caused by ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald.

"A repair crew has arrived in Colosseum by helicopter to attempt repairs on the damaged coastal cable and begin restoring services," a spokesman said.

"All restoration efforts will be weather dependant, but the team is in the process of running cable in an attempt to reinstate services."

A cable near Harlin that could usually act as a backup has also been damaged by flood waters.

"To date, poor weather conditions and flood levels have prevented technicians accessing the second damaged cable north of Harlin," Telstra's spokesman said.

"As the weather clears, technicians will attempt to access the area by helicopter or road with the help of local emergency services to begin works."

The cable damage, together with widespread power outages, led to landline and broadband services being cut in Mackay, Freshwater, Cairns, Rockhampton, Townsville, Mount Isa and Gladstone, Telstra indicated.

"Many 2G, 3G and 4G mobile services throughout Central and Northern Queensland have also been impacted," it said.

While it had a crew working on the Colosseum cut that was impacting fixed services, the carrier hoped to be able to restore some 3G services using a transmission route via Darwin."

itnews

30 hours this time...

& overall, it's an increasingly strange weather event, that keeps being greeted by the phrase "unprecedented." It's still going, moving down the coast, in New South Wales now, dumping many millimeters of rain & accompanied by extremely strong winds.

Australia Day / Invasion Day / Some Sort of Reconciliation Day

For many Indigenous Australians, today marks the 75th anniversary of the fight for Aboriginal rights and recognition.

In 1938, a large group of Aboriginal people gathered in Sydney at a protest they called The Day of Mourning.

The Indigenous demonstrators demanded full citizen rights and equality, and the protest was the beginning of the organised Aboriginal civil rights movement.

Today, 225 years after the First Fleet arrived, the Aboriginal and Australian Flags have flown together on top of Sydney Harbour Bridge for the first time.

Today, the heavy rain

has moved away, but the results of the 520 mm of rain that has fallen over the last three days are extremely evident. Much of the communication infrastructure—internet & cell—was down for nearly 24 hours & has only just come back up; there's an inland lake around the south & west of the city; the major highways south, west, & southwest are all closed with washed out bridges, washed away road, or just too much water over the road to get through; the airport is closed/open/closed/open/closed, though I just heard a plane come in; & the usual stream of gawkers on the streets leading down to the lagoon at the bottom of our street (which is now cut off there) is making getting out difficult.

& the snakes escaping the floodwaters are still to come . . .

350mm of rain

in the 24 hours to 9 a.m., the wettest day here since 1939......

It may be a bit late this year,

but the monsoon trough has finally reached us. 120mm — 4½ in — of rain overnight.

geographies: Morinish

Stage 6: The Great (Media Tarts) Race

A re-elected President is always sweet meat!!

This first stage of the new year is being judged by members of The Academy. Some amongst them

have cast their vote in favor of the alliterative Bono / Barack Obama. Others have gone for the rhyme of

Dalai Lama / Obama.

There is no clear winner. A second round of voting will have to be held; but now The Academy members are arguing over whether it should be constructed in limerick or in haiku form.

Bono is heard muttering offstage "Next time I'll get photographed with Yoko Ono. That'll fix the fucking fuddyduddies!"

why I like proboscis monkeys

Cicerone: A guide who shows the antiquities or curiosities of a place to strangers

How inventive!

A monkey
with a / prominent
proboscis

is called
a / proboscis
monkey.

Yesagyo

In publication terms

November & December were quite prolific months for me. I've listed the November pubs previously. Below is the December list. & I've seen proofs for a couple of things coming out in January.

ditch

3 a.m.

Cricket Online Review, v8 i2

Mascara #12

Fact•Simile #8

Counterexample Poetics

Tip of the Knife #11

Offcourse #51

Series Magritte #238

Natural Encounters

                                                   include

Plenty of opportunities to get up close & personal with concrete countertops & outdoor kitchens.

Discount rates for hotels & motels.

Empowering animals with the ability to make good decisions.

Providing candid photos of female sea turtles nesting.

My perspective on Height Dominance.

Definitions of Common Behavior Terms.

The Leather Elves & other live native New Hampshire animals.

The cutting edge of animal training & presentation with breakfast & lunch included.

Ben Williams, Vice President, who lives in Dorset.

The delicate state of nature.

Your questions that have not been answered.

An adventure through an entire continent.

The way the window on the right has fallen magically & now circles, unsure whether to approach its mate.

M

Today sees post no. 1000 on won des laits. I won't say there are a thousand separate pwoermds there, since my memory isn't what it used to be, & there may be one or two duplicates amongst the posts.

All the same, I'm marking the day with some Knowvemberations.

wordure

phenowomenological

fricochet

customacher

bercircus

savioury

cerebraille

evolvoed
sea&sun's greathings to everyone

I've just

woken up. Has the world ended yet?

Dude!!!!

The Leptobrachium leucops frog, one of five new amphibian species discovered in wet, evergreen forests in southern Vietnam in 2011.
Image by: © Jodi J. L. Rowley/Australian Museum/ WWF

Stoke On Trent

It was 20 years ago today . . .

In the early 1990s Paul Keating's Labor government put Aboriginal reconciliation high on the agenda, establishing the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in 1991 then following up the High Court's Mabo decision in 1992 with native title legislation in 1993. In December 1992, Keating launched Australia's program for the International Year of the World's Indigenous People with this now famous address to a largely Indigenous crowd at Redfern Park in Sydney. He was the first Prime Minister to acknowledge the impact of European settlement on Indigenous Australians. The address reflected a changing official interpretation of Australian history which better accommodated the Aboriginal experience. The speech was arguably a curtain-raiser for the history wars of the Howard years: the following year historian Geoffrey Blainey observed that the 'three cheers' view of Australian history had given way to the 'black armband' view, a phrase which the newly elected John Howard adopted with alacrity in a speech in 1996.

In another sense Keating's Redfern speech paved the way for a formal apology to Indigenous Australians for past government practices, an apology which nevertheless took another 15 years to come. Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson said in 2007 that Keating's Redfern address was 'a great speech because it was about leadership, principle and courage... He placed before Australians the truths of our past and the sad reality of our contemporary society. He laid down the challenge for our future, as a nation united and at peace with its soul.' The spontaneous crowd reactions to the speech are a testament to its power at the time, and are worth listening out for.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 80 days that changed our lives.

Visual, audio, & text of the speech.

Print editions of Otoliths

After a somewhat full-on & slightly demented burst of energy, & assisted by a lightspeed performance from harry k stammer putting the covers together, I am pleased to announce that all the outstanding issues of Otoliths — from twenty-one up through twenty-seven — are now available in print from The Otoliths Storefront.

As usual, each online issue is separated for print into a b&w part one & a color part two. There are two additional part threes: Michael Gottlieb's Letters to a Middle-Aged Poet from issue #24, & John M. Bennett's OLVIDOS DEL PERÚ from issue #27.

& Lulu are running a 20% off an order promotion up until December 14. Codeword FELICITAS.

Finally, after almost seven years . . .

the zine ranks ahead of Wikipedia.

Climate change? Possibly, given the time of the year.

Precursor to the Mayan end of the world? Probably not.

Photo: Newspix/Rex Features
But the seas off Sydney have been red during the day with an algal bloom which at night becomes a phosphorescent blue when stirred by the movement of the water.

Photo: Davide Gaglio, www.photonature.it

world AIDS day

Out from Otoliths — Márton Koppány's Addenda

Now out from Otoliths

Addenda
Márton Koppány
7.5" x 7.5"
56 pages, full color
Otoliths, 2012
ISBN: 978- 0-9872010-6-5
$24.95 + p&h
URL: http://www.lulu.com/shop/m%C3%A1rton-kopp%C3%A1ny/addenda/paperback/product-20511271.html

Márton Koppány's art could be said to be the art of the invisible. His decision to abandon Hungarian in favour of English was a political one, but something else can be said to have happened in this transition. His poetry shifts into a language space that is alien, a snow-blinding landscape that is finding itself, built piece by piece through a poetry where language objects - real and linguistic - float with intent, testing the boundaries of language as intuition. —Tony Trehy

In fact, I'm not certain that there is any across-the-board method that can be learned, and then applied, in order to understand Márton Koppány's poems. If and/or when understanding does come, it happens (in my own experience) wholly – and as if in a flash – like direct, mind-to-mind transmission. When first seeing Márton's poems Katue came quickly to mind. I do not at all mean that Márton's work reminded me of his. What came to my mind was his statement about plastic poetry: “Plastic poem is the figure of poem itself, in other words, it is an 'apparatus of poem'…” I take this as bare-bones poetry, in the best sense of that term. —Roy Arenella

Conceptual art can be bountiful, spare, even beautiful. With an economy of presentation, Márton Koppány’s work uniquely captures, invents, and refashions installations on the page from unexpected sources. His works run the gamut of humor, politics, and philosophy. Each piece offers a genuine gift of perception. With signature purity, works such as “Asemic Volcano”, showcase the potency of word-free realities. “Emptiness” is vibrant with lui-meme realization. “One Moment in Three Sections” depicts a tiny triumph. “Old Question” and “Addendum” prepare the viewer for “Still Life No. 2,” a final reminder of the inherent interconnectedness among all things. The recombinant majesty of Koppány’s genius raises the bar for what is possible in the infinitely expanding universe of visual poetry. —Sheila E. Murphy

new at ditch

http://www.ditchpoetry.com/markyoung2.htm

some octobrists

porkrashertination

memoraphilia

reactress

seaparate

roedo

mortyr

war bling

A Coptic Christian school in Frankston North has gone into administration

Police confirmed that when they arrived a man was found suffering from a lack of consumer & business confidence in global governments. A number of gunshot wounds were also discovered by MPs who were concerned a no vote at the UN would offend Middle East & Muslim communities on the fragile front lawns of their properties. This has proven that ineffective policy responses were set up in the southwest for the purpose of a large negative shock that could bring the US & global economy into recession. A law-enforcement agency called the Industrial Police has been specifically assigned to deal with unrest on fiscal cliffs & upbeat party room speech factories.

yar inga

A busy month

So far this month, I've had poems appear online in:

Cordite
New Mystics
quarter after
streetcake magazine
gobbet

an essay included in the ongoing Angelhouse Press series

in print in:

Rabbit
Best Australian Poetry 2012

have seen proofs for poems coming up in Fact-simile & E•ratio

have a poem coming up as part of a phone app, The Disappearing from The RedRoom Company

& have had a number of other acceptances including an e-book which will appear next year.

geographies: Da Nang

Surabaya

I sell ya all kind
of crab, LAT, but
not much. May I

know his price-
list sir? Ato less
expensive. huh?

Should know a
little science, LAT
maintenance. I

teach between
maintenance. If
interested I am

ready. I sell ya
spices, sandals.
I sell ya fruit.

The waterfall

where Yoshitune washed his horse.

Hokusai

see Series Magritte #237, La Cascade

geographies: Makassar

There's ruggedly handsome,

& there's just plain rugged.

geographies: Boongary

Otoliths Issue Twenty-seven is now on line

Issue twenty-seven of Otoliths, the southern spring 2012 issue, has just gone live.

Spice, life, variety, any permutation thereof—as always they're a given with Otoliths.
This issue maintains the high standard, contains work by Spencer Selby, Ian Wedde, Christopher Brownsword, Ed Baker, Jim Meirose, dan raphael, Volodymyr Bilyk, Philip Byron Oakes, Bob Marcacci, Jack Galmitz, Howie Good, William Allegrezza, Sarah Suzor & Travis Cebula, Brad Liening, Jal Nicholl, Glenn R. Frantz, Massimo Sannelli, John McKernan, Jac Nelson, Raymond Farr, Marilyn R. Rosenberg,, Stephen C. Middleton, George McKim, Will Burke, Travis Macdonald, Stuart Barnes, John M. Bennett, Francesco Aprile, Vernon Frazer, Scott Keeney, Pete Spence, Márton Koppány, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Sharon Kaye, Ric Carfagna, Anton Frost, J. D. Nelson, Richard Kostelanetz, Tony Beyer, Joshua Comyn, Michalia Arathimos, Sam Moginie, Scott Metz, Joel Chace, Anna McCarthy, John Pursch, Lakey Comess, Andrew Topel with Jim Leftwich & John M. Bennett ...with Carol Stetser ...with Matthew Stolte ...with Scott Helmes ...with Jessy Kendall, Kirk Marshall, Gregory Stephenson, Haley Rene Thompson, Rob Burton, Dan Hedges, Lars Palm, Stephen Nelson, Jeff Harrison, Jacqueline Doyle, Pam Hopkins, Alexander Jorgensen, Stu Hatton, Bogdan Puslenghea, SS Prasad, Bob Heman, Charles Freeland & Rosaire Appel, Jim Davis, Bobbi Lurie, paul summers, Marcia Arrieta, Judith Roitman, Michael Brandonisio, Samantha Seto, Alan Davies & tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, Jessie Janeshek, Aditya Bahl, Liam Ferney, Louise Landes Levi, Sam Langer, & Reed Altemus.

Today the
postman brought
me my contributor's
copy of

                      So long
in the making, so
worth the wait.

geographies: Coowonga

the little fangirl.

You can call me Mew. I love BLEACH, IchiRuki & strawberries. I’m a rabid fangirl & I have out-of-this-world imagination, along with drawing skills which are just about as good as Rukia’s. I can speak English & a little of both Japanese & French.

My favourite characters are Ichigo, Rukia, Nii-sama, Hitsugaya & Kon. I try to post mainly IchiRuki stuff here but sometimes I’ll slip in a non-IchiRuki post or two.

I’m a full-time student & a part-time full-time IchiRuki fangirl.

Please enjoy your stay here & thank you for visiting my little tumblelog ♥

Out from Otoliths — Bobbi Lurie's the morphine poems

Now out from Otoliths.

the morphine poems
Bobbi Lurie
56 pages
Otoliths, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9872010-5-8
$12.15 + p&h
URL: http://www.lulu.com/shop/bobbi-lurie/the-morphine-poems/paperback/product-20299925.html

the morphine poems succeeds as language breaks through language, metastasizes through the harboring of pain. The words spread across the page with a content all their own; uncanny, they haunt the body. Paragraphs of disorderly text are ordered; a poetics of life against death seeps through. This is an important and powerful book, concerned with illness that almost tends towards a pathology of speech itself. The body refuses to disappear and the words simultaneously convey despair, heartbreak, and resistance. Bobbi Lurie writes unsparingly about sickness and wayward health in a brave and detailed cartography of body and biography, creating a work of brilliance and renewal. Everyone should read this book, which is everyone's journey, one way or another, a journey from life into life. It is a journey that is all too often shamefully hidden, a journey we need to contemplate and embrace. —Alan Sondheim

This wracked and fragile (i.e. powerful) volume “defines the disorder to not be a noun so much as a metaphor for self-sabotage”–semiotic flux run amok as daily rituals: eating, attending gatherings, girl-things. Long swirls of sensory and cognitive language sentences, one heir to Bob Kaufman’s Second April’s run-ons tinged with a morphine sensibility. A feminine dissolution, self-critical and at the mercy of bare larders and bereft landscapes. Sister Morphine stripped of hip. Honest as hell. —Maria Damon

The Janus face of poetry has given Bobbi Lurie its undivided attention. —Jeff Harrison

What really strikes me is how utmostly clearly her mind worked in the imminence of “... the doctor’s pockmarked face up close as the iv drips 'i’ll kill you,' says he, 'then keep you alive' and i….i…i…” There's nothing surreal about the rushing images, which are deeply and acutely self-reflexive. “perhaps a porch i never sat at a feeling of fellowship against deception ...“ She doesn't fight reason or try to get "beyond" it. I mean: she never tries to escape the here and now by inventing hiding places. “a life without epiphanies is all i ask of poets ...“

In the morphine poems, Bobbi Lurie spares herself and her reader from faked escapes (consequently from the burden of suppressed fears), therefore she doesn't multiply suffering by itself, and that is liberating –and a very rare attitude! “how she gave me her seat as if a friend as i was passing out kindness took my hand filled with stones and sour summer reprieve in fruit ...“ —Márton Koppány

L'Année dernière

In a sprawling baroque hotel, a stranger, X, tries to persuade a married woman, A, to leave her husband, M, and run away with him. He reminds her of her promise when they met a year ago, at Marienbad, but the woman seems not to remember that meeting......

the septimbre of some pwoermds

orthodon'tist

becomingling

strgglue

lawndromat

sobterfuge

yellowquince

possessi've

miinng

retierment

geographies: Limestone Creek

the / merganser will / inherit the earth

Indicators of climate change #1764

I'm as corny as Kansas Manitoba in August,
I'm as abnormal as blueberry pie.

While farmers nationwide planted the most corn this year since 1937, growers in Kansas sowed the fewest acres in three years, instead turning to less-thirsty crops such as wheat, sorghum and even triticale, a wheat-rye mix popular in Poland. Meanwhile, corn acreage in Manitoba, a Canadian province about 700 miles north of Kansas, has nearly doubled over the past decade due to weather changes and higher prices.

Shifts such as these reflect a view among food producers that this summer’s drought in the US — the worst in half a century — isn’t a random disaster. It’s a glimpse of a future altered by climate change that will affect worldwide production.

SMH

More than two million living in poverty

Gov. Romney had "half a tonne" of police lying on top of him before he was rolled over—no longer breathing & blue in the face, an inquest heard this morning. News Limited have reported Paul Ryan has been dumped as the fallout continues. When the aspiring vice president applied to attend another committee hearing, an extra security guard was placed there, but a “unique” human error had allowed him to leave smirking, laughing, smiling. Joe Biden had the split screen, had them both on it. People probably couldn’t take their eyes off of it.

Today the
postman brought
me next week's
lottery numbers—
one through to
forty-four, the
same as this,
last, & every
week for the
past ten years.

Once again

my backyard becomes an unofficial site for

as I read a poem to the accompaniment & applause of a cross-section of the local birds who are gathered in the mango tree.

geographies: Alexandra Bridge

geographies: Pukatika

The 2012 Ig Nobel Awards

organised by Annals of Improbable Research and awarded on Thursday at Harvard University.

Psychology: Anita Eerland, Rolf Zwaan and Tulio Guadalupe, for their study entitled Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller.

Peace: The SKN company, for using technology to convert old Russian ammunition into new diamonds.

Acoustics: Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada for creating the SpeechJammer, a machine that disrupts a person's speech by making them hear their own spoken words at a very slight delay.

Neuroscience: Craig Bennett, Abigail Baird, Michael Miller, and George Wolford, for demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere – even in a dead salmon.

Chemistry: Johan Pettersson for solving the puzzle of why, in certain houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden, people's hair turned green.

Literature: The US government general accountability office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.

Physics: Joseph Keller, Raymond Goldstein, Patrick Warren and Robin Ball, for calculating the balance of forces that shape and move the hair in a human ponytail.

Fluid dynamics: Rouslan Krechetnikov and Hans Mayer, for studying the dynamics of liquid sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks while carrying a cup of coffee.

Anatomy: Frans de Waal and Jennifer Pokorny, for discovering that chimpanzees can identify specific other chimpanzees from seeing photographs of their rear ends.

Medicine: Emmanuel Ben-Soussan, for advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimise the chance of their patients exploding.

geographies: Dalma Scrub

Don Binney, 1940-2012

Kotare Over Hikurangi

"In the first years of the 1960s, there emerged from Auckland University's School of Art several painters who have since made considerable contributions to New Zealand painting. Amongst them . . . Don Binney.

"Binney works in an extremely hard-edged style that defines and makes obvious his forms. At first he used what he describes as a 'token landscape' to act as background to the birds whose forms were then his concern, but gradually the landscape, with the 'brilliant nervous quality' of its light, has assumed equal and often prime importance."

M.Y. New Zealand Art: Painting 1950-1967, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, N.Z. 1968

Tui Over Te Henga

---

from The Dead Presidents
pelican dreaming , 6/12/2004

I heard about the assassination of John F. Kennedy whilst I was riding on the small bus that then crossed the Coromandel Peninsula of New Zealand from Whitianga to Thames.

A narrow road in a temperate rain forest. Most times only wide enough for the bus. Branches scraping the roof. Few passengers.

The driver had a little transistor radio. Reception was, understandably, crappy at best. Scratchy. But through it all, breaking into the music, came a severe & oh so serious voice. "Stand by for an important news item." Repeated. Then, "The President of the United States, John F. Kennedy has just been assassinated."

Because of the dateline this was the morning of Saturday, November 23 in Aotearoa. Hearing the news anywhere would have caused shock, but to hear it in such surroundings was utterly bizarre. & distressing. Even to someone like myself whose politics were left of left, JFK was a figure of hope. Vietnam was still to move from S.E. Asia's equivalent of off-off-off Broadway. The Cold War was still the main occupant of the world stage. The Bay of Pigs was someone else's fuckup. The Cuban missile crisis had been resolved because of JFK's steely resolve & we were all breathing a little easier. Frank O'Hara was still alive. Kruschev was still coming on the right day!

We changed buses & headed for Auckland where we were to stay at the house of some friends who had gone away a couple of days earlier & who had told us where they'd left the key. Drove into Auckland to a main street dotted with newspaper billboards – yes, they still had afternoon newspapers in those days – that proclaimed PRESIDENT KENNEDY ASSASSINATED. Not many people around, only the billboards.

Caught a taxi to our friends' house. Went inside. First thing we saw was a newspaper billboard on the wall. AMERICAN PRESIDENT ASSASSINATED. Freaked out, totally & utterly. How, if they'd been away for the last two days, could this have got there? Moved closer. Found it to be a reproduction of the billboard announcing Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Did not breathe any easier.

***
The friends whose house we stayed at, Don & Judy Binney.

geographies: Princhester

Some August pwoermds @ won des laits

trenchery

feredom

hounddogma

reproreduction

oopstimism

securiosity

platétude

geographies: Pinkerton's Corner

geographies: Wandal

Getting your priorities right

One of the first acts of the recently-elected conservative Queensland State Government was to scrap the annual literary awards, using the excuse they couldn't afford the $244,000 the awards cost in administration & prize money.

Now, barely three months later, this same government has announced it is giving $200,000 to the production company behind the local edition of Big Brother.

Indicators of Climate Change #1279

The koël, a cuckoo that migrates south from New Guinea each year to go through two breeding cycles on the Australian continent, has arrived a month early this year, judging by the koël, koël calls I've started hearing over the last few days.

geographies: Leaholme