Tonality and Accents

When discussing languages, we distinguish between those that are tonal, such as Chinese, and those that aren't, like German. In tonal languages, one word can have multiple meanings depending upon its inflection: whether the sound is clipped or drawn out, rising or falling, glottal or rounded. To non-tonal speakers, the prospect of learning such a dialect is often intimidating - not rationally so, but in the way of the unfamiliar, like a new alphabet or backwards-reading script.

In the case of English, however, I wonder how applicable this distinction really is.

A weekly sketch on the Armstrong and Miller Show features two WWI flying aces. All their scenes are shot in black and white; their mode of speech is upper-class British. There is only one glaring (and deliberate) anachronism to spoil the historicity and source the humour: despite their accents, the pair speak in current teenage slang. So when the pilots are berated for cowardice, and one replies in his Eton-voice, 'That's, like, racism, but against cowards!', it's hilarious. And part of the reason has to do with tonality: the meaning of the words hasn't changed, but the context is incorrect. Properly, such phrasing belongs to the youth of a different class and generation: said with the wrong accent, it becomes absurd. The same can also be said of black American slang - it doesn't sound right unless spoken with its originating inflection, and for a middle-aged white man to attempt a 'what up, homie?' would either be deliberately ironic or appallingly incorrect.

Think of something as simple as repeating a joke you've heard. Hit the wrong emphasis, muddle the voices, and the humour is lost. If the original teller had a different accent to you, prepare to find the process harder. Commedians as diverse as Corinne Grant, Kenneth Williams, Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Dave Hughes, Rowan Atkinson, Sascha Baren-Cohen, Judith Lucy, Woody Allen and Arj Barker all generate a large part of their humour through their distinctive tones.

In conversational English, a rising or falling inflection makes the difference between asking a question and stating a fact, if it comes at the end of a sentance, or the topic under discussion, if in the middle. To cite subcultural precedent for both points: in Friends, Rachael mistakes Monica's question 'got the keys?' for a statement. Result: the pair are locked outside, as each assumes the other has the keys. Similarly, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anya brings Spike to an Initiative party. On realising where he is, Spike protests, 'You brought me here?', just as Xander accuses, 'You brought him here?' To which Spike replies, 'I just said that! Only I hit the 'here' part.' Result: inflection and emphasis make the characters concerned about two different things: Spike with being near the Initiative, and Xander with Spike being there at all.

English isn't tonal; not in the deliberate and structured way of other languages. But our multitunious slang forms, jokes, emphases and accents all contribute to certain normalities of speech, phraseologies that, beyond being merely social, cultural or geographic, have the power to change the meaning of words. And that, I think, is often overlooked.

To Blog, Or Not To Blog

Let's face it: there's a weird allure to blogging, as evidenced by the fact that it encourages two significant behavioural contradictions. These are:

1. Private, introverted people happily display their innermost thoughts in a public forum; and

2. Individuals who would otherwise never keep diaries or aspire to writing careers, do so.

The first is, far and away, the more intriguing phenomenon. What compels people to bare their souls - and, more importantly, what makes them think that no-one will notice? It's common emotional sense to disregard the potential scrutiny of strangers, but in every online community I've been part of, uproar has occured when this blog or that is discovered by acquaintances of the creator. It's a strange problem: in treating their blogs as private diaries, writers feel free to criticise, complain about, badmouth, lament, mock or otherwise denigrate friends, family, co-workers, lovers and love-interests with the same implied impugnity as they would celebrities, sports teams or politicians. But the percieved protection is, in fact, utterly absent, and if a quick Google by Bored Person A of Blogger B's name reveals a treasure-trove of dirty goss, then problems will arise.

Personally, I see this as the writer's own lookout. On sites like livejournal, it's easy to make your posts private - that is, only viewable to those of whom you approve. Failing that, it's just as easy to write under an online handle (as most people do), leave your real name off the site (to prevent Googling) or - and here's the biggy - rename your friends when bitching about them, (as in whistleblower interviews). What stops people from doing this seems to be a variant of writer's conceit: the desire to have your (excellent) skills and viewpoints correctly attributed on the offchance that some passing bigwig wants to give you money. Beyond that, if you're going to blog critically about your nearest and dearest, non-anonymity seems foolish - although this isn't the general opinion of those caught. More often, the response is anger that whoever-it-was had read their private thoughts, as though the reader had broken the lock after rummaging through the proverbial sock drawer. Knowing you've found a friend's blog, runs this argument, imposes the courtesy of not actually reading it, especially if they haven't told you it's there. The boundaries of individual privacy in a global forum are, admittedly, still being decided, just as online ettiquite is still being learned, but in the interim, taking no measures to secure privacy and then bewailing the consequences seems akin to leaving your house permanently open and expecting not to be robbed.

As for bloggers themselves, the blank canvas has issued a siren-song to our kind throughout history. At the simplest level, we carve our names in trees and graffitti walls - a way of saying that we are here, and of hoping that, when we're gone, a part of us won't be. More than this, however, it's what makes us look longingly on rows of beautiful notebooks, pristine in their unsullied whiteness, and dream of putting them to use. Here lies potential, they seem to promise. With us, you can say anything. Your handwriting will be perfect. You'll always use the same pen. You'll never need to cross anything out, and when you're done, each book will resemble a work of art. And so, thus enlivened, we buy one, carried forward on a wave of creative enthusiasm - only to have our usage inevitably taper off. The ink smears; we draw doodles; we tear out pages, ramble on, write messily in a number of different colours and, all of a sudden, that weight of potentiality is gone, marred by the non-linear scramble of human thought.

But blogs - lovely blogs!- are digital. There is no mess to be made. We can edit without besmirching the look of the thing, change the colour in an ordered, mannerly fashion, put up pictures and alter the font. There is no bulk of unused paper to intimidate or demand thoughtful contribution: each blog is exactly as long as we make it. The sense of potentiality is never diminished by squalid appearance, and thus we keep writing, even if our entries are entirely banal. Which, ultimately, is the defining characteristic of the blogging era: no matter how many entries, authors, topics or sites, there's no guarantee that what's being said is worth the paper it isn't written on.

O Tempora, O Mores

I was sceptical of Lions for Lambs when I saw it advertised at the cinemas. Somehow, the idea of watching Tom Cruise portray a rabidly militant Republican Senator pushed all the wrong buttons, and so it became a wait-until-DVD moment. Watching it tonight, I was pretty impressed: the script is fantastic, the ensemble casting spot-on, and the message powerful. I could devote many more lines to reviewing it in full, but instead, I'll focus on what hit me as I rented it today: the profound effect of terrorism on recent cinema.

Going back a few days, the thought was with me as I watched Iron Man on the big screen. In early scenes, the script goes out of its way to emphasise that Tony Stark - weapons-maker, industrialist and all-round American anti-hero - is, first and foremost, a patriot. The truth of this assertion is never questioned, but what does come under siege is the working definition of patriotism itself. At first, the description hinges on having a bigger stick than the other guy; but as Stark questions the logic of producing arms to save the world, this view becomes unstuck.

Here as elsewhere, the choice is to support the system for the principles on which it rests, or abandon the system when those principles cease to be applied. Moreso than the films, it's a central theme to the Star Wars comics that sculpt the context for Episodes II and III: the dilemma of Jedi defending a morally indefensible Republic for the sake of its democratic ideals. When the system breaks down, can it be repaired from the inside out, or must a new structure replace it? We're getting away from terrorism, but only into related areas. Like it or not, the moral, social and political dilemmas of our time are being played out in our cinemas, and not always with the intended effect.

From the outset, some films make their agenda plain. V for Vendetta is an obvious example, as are Syriana, The Constant Gardener, Children of Men and Apocalypto, but the retconning of older stories to incorporate modern terrorism is, in one sense, more significant. Batman Begins is an interesting case in point: beyond the corruption of Gotham City, Raz Al-Ghoul is best described as a corporate jihadi, while Daniel Craig's new-look 007 in Casino Royale faced terrorists and their backers rather than the traditional communists. We might count S.P.E.C.T.R.E as a terrorist organisation, but the definition of modern terrorism is not nearly so - for lack of a better word - corporate. It is no longer the evil henchmen, white cats and grey jumpsuits so aptly parodied by Dr Evil in Austin Powers: it is dirty, violent, random and brutally personal. Even Bruce Willis, repraising his role as John MacLean in Die Hard 4.0, is fighting a different breed of terrorist to his original enemies. Pure profit is no longer the incentive: instead, the effect is mayhem, and the motive ideological.

Periphary but related themes are the mistrust of government, corporate crimes, lies in the media, socio-political relations and the ubiquitous question of 'religon', usually translated as 'Islam vs. Everything Else.' Notably, The Kingdom failed spectacularly at all of the above, the bitter irony of which being that the writers were trying to protest exactly the ignorance they ended up committing. The first and last scenes achieve what the intervening hours utterly bungle: an effort at painting Saudis and Americans as equally (morally) human. 300 deserves a longer critique for similar reasons, but the practical upshot is the Battle of Thermopylae being used as an allegory for the military triumph of Western democracy over the Middle East. Babel is a better, if ultimately disturbing, example: there are always people on both ends of a bullet, it says, and neither of them needs must be a monster.

There are differing interpretations of all these films, but what can't be denied is that Hollywood, by and large, is trying to come to grips with terrorism and its consequences. How their efforts are viewed now as distinct from the reaction of future historians is yet to be seen, but with the privilege of hindsight, what influence might we see? Stylistically, all films belong to a certain era, and it seems extremely doubtful that a new Fight Club could be made too soon: a story in which our generation lacks a defining war, where violent terrorism is espoused by the protagonists, and where - in the triumphal, final moments - Western civilisation literally collapses, skyscrapers emblazoned with an ironic smiley face tumbling into rubble as the anarchist lovers look on and grin. Instead, we have Southland Tales, where Armageddon is pre-empted by left-wing terrorism, and a chilling reversal of T.S. Elliott's famous line prevails throughout:

This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a whimper, but with a bang.

An Ugly Trend

Today's universe is unsympathetic to school children, it seems. In New Zealand, six teenagers and their teacher have died on a canoeing expedition as the result of an inexplicable flash flood; eighteen Ugandan girls between nine and twelve have burned to death in their school dormitory, along with one adult; and in India, at least 44 school children died when their bus drove off a bridge and into a canal, with another 20 passengers still unaccounted for.

There's no greater point to make. It's just an ugly trend.

Blatant Political Speculation

There's an aura of foregone conclusion to the current American political race, in the sense that nobody gives two hoots about the Republicans. This year, it's all about Obama vs. Clinton and the Democrats. Not that I'm complaining, mind, but throughout the campagin coverage thus far, something has been niggling at me, and it is this: whoever wins through, their policies will have had almost nothing to do with it. Instead, the next leader of the Democrats (or America) will be elected almost exclusively on the basis of either their race or gender, and in such an overt fashion as to lay the whole concept of an intelligent democracy open to question. I am not deaf to the potential significance of the first black or female President, but the irony is enormous: neither milestone has been reached exactly because, historically, Western politicians have been elected on the basis of race (white) and gender (male). The fact that these elections are reversing the criterion hasn't removed the element discrimination, as so many people seem to believe: instead, it has merely reversed it.

As an active government policy, reverse descrimination has been tried in various parts of the world as an antidote to previous racism, notably in South Africa. Regardless of job experience or suitability, employers are encouraged, if not required, to hire black staff over white, and while the intention of the policy is equal opportunity, it is creating a wealth of problems, particularly in teaching and academia. Previous discrimination meant that many black children were denied education - a travesty, to be sure, but one compounded when those same uneducated children, now adults, are given teaching jobs in turn. Some are barely literate; others lack basic qualifications. This is not their fault, and it doesn't make them unintelligent, but it does mean their students will suffer, and where such teachers are attempting to educate a new generation of black students, it prolongs the ill-effects and negative consequences racism. It also breeds resentment: the fact that white people have had hundreds of years on the beneficial end of discrimination doesn't make the objection to being passed over solely on the basis of race less painful, or - more importantly - less valid.

Which brings us back to Clinton and Obama. Arguably, I'm not looking hard enough, but almost every scrap of commentary I've encountered on the Demoncratic primaries has, at some point, touched on the indecision all black women 'must' be feeling: whether to vote for their race, or their gender. This indecision is undoubtably true in many instances, but if it constitutes the whole of a voter's struggle over which candidate to support, as opposed to being one issue among many (or even a tie-break question), then the problem is bigger than we think. The idea that some black women might be Republican, a la Condoleezza Rice, hasn't been mentioned at all.

Imagine, for a moment, a world in which Barack Obama was contending, not against Hilary Clinton, but another black man. The milestone would remain, but the deciding factor in victory (one hopes) would be policy: at the very least, it physically couldn't be race. Similarly, if Hilary were to battle another white female candidate, the issue of gender - while lack of a precedent would see it mentioned - would not set one above the other. Of course, given that the Republicans have put forward the the traditional white male, these issues will still remain at the actual election, but that's (for now) a separate conundrum.

All of which raises the question: does policy matter at all? The cynical pragmatist in this writer already believes that the necessary evils of compromise, backtracking and deception render political policy as hawked at election-time a poor auger for what will actually happen: pure democracy, like all original ideology, changes in the transition from paper to real life. Nonetheless, we are still voting for something more relevant than biology, and even were my anarchistic half to argue that choice, in this respect, is an illusion generated by large amounts of conflicting information and media hype, it still leads to a complex decision-making process. In this instance, however, commentators are presenting us with a much more simplistic dilemma: do we want a black leader, or a woman?

Ultimately, I'll be content (though unsurprised) if the Democrats win the election. Were I an American citizen, I'd vote for Obama on the grounds of his policies, agnosticism (reading between the lines), intelligence and charisma; Hilary is too rightwards-leaning for my taste. But whoever gets in, I hope - perhaps unreasonably - that they are elected for the right reasons, and not the physicality they were born with. Because that's the point of democracy: an intelligent, thinking leader is all well and good, but nothing can beat an intelligent, thinking populace.

Some Thoughts

When we think of modern society compared to previous eras, there tends to be one underlying assumption, and it is this: that even if we are no happier than before (although we strongly suspect this to be the case) we are nonetheless better off. What 'better off' means in this context can vary from person to person, but by and large, it equates to intelligence: that is, we know better, therefore act better, and therefore live better. Tuning semantics even more finely, we might ask what 'better' alone means, which provides a much more variable answer due to the vast range of subjects and issues that 'society' encompasses. Sometimes, it is a flat-out value judgement: medicine and science, for instance, are inarguably better than in the sixteenth century. Othertimes, the matter is more clouded: there are enough monarchists, zealots, anarchists, malcontents, theocrats, thinkers and others of a similarly contrary mindset in the world that 20th century democracy isn't universally lauded as the political panacea it is often touted as, which makes it impossible to state declaratively that our social institutions are, as concepts, better than those which preceeded them, even if we might argue the comparative success of their results. And then there are moral (or purely social, which is to say, random and behavioural) gains or losses: alway nebulous, as individual bias tends to fling any measuring needle across every extreme with all the circular abandon of a broken compass.

With all that in mind, then, here are a few of my own thoughts on a select gamut of modern phenomena. A very select gamut, in point of fact: namely, feminism.

This is a word with which I've always had an uneasy relationship; not because I disbelieve the concept, but because of a tendency to challenge its ongoing application, at least in my part of the world. Certainly, there has been unexpected fallout from society's overdue decision to acknowledge women and men as equal creatures: fallout, in the sense that (a) every action has consequences we don't always anticipate; (b) that not all of these are welcome; and, more specifically, (c) - that even though the political and legal institution of social mysogeny has been abandoned, other customs and mores which developed alongside (or because of it) haven't, and the fact of that association doesn't necessarily mean they should be. This is, essentially, the crux of the matter: we went ahead and created a new world, but are still learning how to live in it, unsure of which relics to cast aside, keep or reforge.

Equality, for instance, cuts both ways. As women have the right to be breadwinners, so do men have the right to be stay-at-home parents or partners. As women have the right to delay having children (or remain childless), become defactos, seek divorce or remain single, so too do men. And yet, the logic of these positions is often grating or unobvious. Many a recent female columnist has lamented the idea of 'lost boys', grown men who refuse to get married and seemingly cling to childhood - but if marriage and parenthood are no longer socially compulsory for anyone, any right to such complaint is absent. This is a prime example of unexpected fallout: at least some women imagined that, once the old rules were broken in their favour, men would continue to keep playing the same game with just that single exception. It has been a shock to many to learn otherwise.

When we look back at other historical periods, we are quite often able to tease out certain social concepts with which we agree, albeit for different reasons than were offered at the time. This, I feel, is the most crucial and significant gain the passage of time has offered us: that where we once acted ignorantly in accordance with current practice, we have subsequently searched out the relevant theory. To divert momentarily from feminism, an example can be found in the practice of conservation. Tribes and subsistance farmers comprehended the principle of 'leave some for next year' generations before science ever popularised the language of 'environment' or 'conservation' - and yet, when our societies grew and industrialisation emerged, we lost those ideals because, in a sense, the global theory had never been understood. For the main, old-world 'conservation' applied, not because of any deep-seated knowledge about the limitations of natural resources, pollution or deforestation, but because it was practical in the short-term. Once that immediate practicality was lost, we stopped short of looking over the next horizon, and it wasn't until (ironically) our new societies allowed us space to examine our own mechanisms and impact that we realised the unintentioned sense of what had come before, and began to apply it again with the theory in mind.

Socially, then, we are now in the process of learning similar lessons, most prominently biology: no matter how far modern medicine has come; no matter the importance of gains when it comes to women's rights, equality, the demands of the modern workforce and social practice, there is still a time limit on when any given person may have children. To pretend otherwise is folly, and to act as if social learnings somehow prohibit or overrule the fact is similarly foolish. This, I think, is the single greatest question that feminism has produced, and it tends to suggest some uncomfortable bedfellows. No matter the law or society, men do not fall pregnant, give birth and breastfeed. Women do. Ultimate equality would entail a world in which, regardless of gender, these functions could be passed to whichever partner was deemed most willing or best suited; and while science fiction would have us believe that this is not entirely out of the question, we still needs must live in the now.

Ultimately, I feel, the lessons of feminism and equality can (and, perhaps, should) be boiled down to two core concepts: the freedom for each to choose their own roles in life, and the space to be happy in them. There will always be restrictions on that choice - biology, mortality, finance and whatever other social burdens the given age seems fit to impose - but if we can cling to those two ideals, uphold them and continue to believe and know the theory behind the practise; then, I believe, there will always be hope for us.

Mirror, Mirror

When I was little, my grandmother would take me to the Chatswood shops on weekends. We'd walk around for hours, and at the end of the day, I'd usually end up with a new book, ten or so dollars in coins and a McDonald's lunch. I've got a lot of memories from those outings, but one of the clearest (and most abstract) is of standing between two mirrors in a ladies' bathroom, trying to see my face in a series of echoing, bending reflections.

I don't recall whether it was my first experience with the sensation, or exactly how old I was - around six or so, from where I remember my eye level resting - but there was something powerful and a little scary in it. After turning my head this way and that, I finally realised that I could never see myself reflected all the way through: but I could see everyone else.

Reading Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad for the first time in high school, I was captured by a paragraph warning of the danger in standing between two mirrors. It was this:

"You can use two mirrors like this, if you know the way of it: you can set them so that they reflect each other. For if images can steal a bit of you, then images of images can amplify you, feeding you back on yourself, giving you power...
And your image extends forever, in reflections of reflections of reflections, and every image is the same, all away around the curve of light.
Except that it isn't.
Mirrors contain infinity.
Infinity contains more things than you think.
Everything, for a start.
Including hunger.
Because there's a million billion images and only one soul to go around.
Mirrors give plenty, but they take away lots."

And the more I think on it, the more it seems like standing between two mirrors is the best way of describing human belief. We can never fully scrutinise how faith or scepticism suits us: always, our head gets in the way of looking at itself. We can only ever watch other people, and be watched in turn, but no matter if we shut our eyes or ignore the glass, the reflections keep on bending away into ever. And what's being reflected is us: bounced back, altered, observed and in plural, but if we didn't stand between the mirrors, there'd be nothing to reflect.

Which is a poetic way of saying that no matter what we believe, or our meta-thoughts on why and how and we believe it, the process always has more to do with who we are in the first place than most people will comfortably acknowledge.

Just as the reflections in the mirror can prompt us to alter our appearance, or prolonged staring engender a perception of beauty or ugliness beyond what is actually shown, so too can examining our beliefs lead to their alteration. But in arriving at them first off, no matter how unconsciously, we still choose the terms and conditions of our faith.

While some are strengthened from seeing their convictions reflected, others are weakened, or humbled, or shamed - and some see only themselves.

If you were to stand between two mirrors, what would you see?

I Heard The News Today...

An era has come to an end.

After fifty years as Dictatore Supremo of Cuba, Fidel Castro is stepping down. The fact that he's lived long enough to do so is, of itself, surprising, America having spent the last half-century trying - and, by various means, failing - to assassinate him. His governance has been a geopolitical constant for so long that ending it is akin to the demolition of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of the Soviet Union (an event which Castro himself survived, despite his reliance on their funds). The boards of history are being redrawn, one feels. We do not know what will happen next.

Human beings are narrow creatures. Deliberately or not, most of us spend our lives believing that the way things are now is the way they will always be, because ours is (surely!) the society for which the rest of history has been working. If we envisage future change, it tends towards one of four categories, viz:

1. Naively minimal - refining the status quo through better technology;
2. Hopefully progressive - hovercars, space travel, nuclear fission and green power;
3. Cynically dystopian - corruption and socio-economic divides after global cataclysm; or
4. Apocalyptic - end times, the Rapture, Ragnarok or other such death by explosion.

The problem with these models is twofold. Firstly, they are each contextually based on current perception: the naive minimalist doesn't comprehend the unknown; the hopeful progressive determines all future need based on currently percieved deficiencies; the cynical dystopian assumes that the worst of the status quo will endure; and the apocalyptic believes things are irrevocably going downhill. This is because - quite understandably - we cannot divorce ourselves from the present. It is foolish to assume that nothing of the current era will endure, but equally unreasonable to guess at what survives. There is, admittedly, nothing else to go on; and yet we forget the precariousness of predictions, assmuing (each in his own way) that this thing or that will never alter.

Secondly, however, is the problem of rogue elements - the ultimate catalysts for the above problem. There are several billion people on our planet, all of them acting individually and in hugely disparate circumstances. Throw in the necessity of coincidence, and it becomes impossible to tell what events are really shaping the future.

How, then, does any of this relate to Fidel Castro?

There are moments in life when we hear something new, experience something significant, and undergo the uneasy realisation that the world has altered; that our perceptions of future continuty, however intelligently founded a moment ago, are bunk. Often, these moments of epiphany are shared across a wide-ranging consciousness, sparked by a single event. John F. Kennedy's assassination. September 11. Man walking on the moon. The end of the French Revolution. And whenever it occurs, some small part of us is either rattled or elated: despite the breadth of global possibility, despite the laws of time and the passage of history, we had never really believed this thing could happen.

And now it has.

Life Is A Song

Music has been such an integral part of human culture for so long that describing why has become largely impossible. Asking why different songs can move us deeply is a bit like questioning why we have two eyes, or the reason for round planets - like trying to pin down the precicse mechanisms that result in love, the answer either varies from person to person or becomes an admission of intrinsicality, viz: It Just Does. Through a combination of music and lyrics (or sometimes just music, or sometimes - if we broaden our definition to encompass poetry and rap - just lyrics), music can perfectly express moods that we otherwise struggle to pin down, to such an extent that in this day and age, we may well refer someone to the iTunes store when asked about our day.

Which makes me wonder: what songs best define your personality?

Obviously, it's not an easy question. People are multifaceted, not to mention ever-changing. What described us perfectly at the age of 15 may no longer apply, while a ditty we adore now might bring shudders in a decade. But here, at least, is my attempt to self-describe through song.

Teenage Years:
Touched - VAST
Bohemian Like You - The Dandy Warhols
Goodbye To You - Michelle Branch

Politics:
Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles
Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell
Loose Lips - Kimya Dawson

Whimsy:
Sand In My Shoes - Dido
A Place Called Home - Kim Richey
Love You - The Free Design

Happiness:
Release - George
Stevie - Spiderbait
19-20000 - gorillaz

First Poem of the New Year

Belief does not bring peace of
mind. Depression
digs its fingers in
to man of cloth & child of sin
alike; & in the tumbled heart
where tangled tubes & vessels burn
we break apart & shatter in
the knowledge that we will not learn:
humanity is flawed; but lo! –
we linger on; we will not go.

Despair does not unravel hope.
The measure where the mind gives way
to madness in (the
echo found); the day
today, the curling ground below
the satin sway of sky; the pearling
blue & vaulted black beyond the reach
of human eye, which seeks (unseen)
for what we lack:
life weeps; but in the silver rain
we wash our hearts, and loving
will remain.

The Owning Of Cats Is A Difficult Matter

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone foolish enough to be possessed of a housecat must be in want of a dead mouse. Or, possibly, a live mouse. Delivered to their bed. At three o'clock in the morning.

At least, this is the logic under which Bop was operating last night. Having already woken Quine and me up by brawling furiously across our feet with Nano at 1:30, he came back an hour and a half later, walked around on us a bit, and then left, no doubt looking pleased with himself. Trying to fall back asleep after this interruption, I heard Quine mumble, 'I think there's a mouse in the bed.'

Any enthusiasm I might have felt at this knowledge was instantly quelled by the fact that I was (a) tired and (b) completely unbothered by the prospect, in the strange, detatched way of someone unwilling to get up for anything less than World War III or the next George R. R. Martin novel.

'Mmph,' said I, rolling over. I heard Quine rise - heard his feet shift on the wood as, with bleary ceremony, he examined our bed.

It was at this point I felt something twitching under the doona near my leg. Ah.

'Mouse,' I mumbled. Quine dove and, after a struggle of epic proportions, wrestled the invader into submission. I heard banging and muffled swearing, the unmistakeable sound of Bop and his latest gift being thrown unceremoniously out of the kitchen.

Quine returned. We went to sleep.

Ten minutes later, Bop - and his mouse - were back. A sterner, grumpier eviction followed, of which I took no part but relief when, after another return to restless sleep, the incident was not repeated a third time.

Whence, then, has come Bop's recent fascination with mice? I say 'recent,' because - unlike just about any other cat in the known universe - Bop is a fairly useless hunter. To date, he has caught two rats (one only rumoured by an old lady he used to visit) and a dove. Possibly, there is a small number of mice to add to this list, but I am disinclined to count them, owing to the fact that, nine times out of ten, he loses them; and on the other occasions, he's never quite sure what to do. In fact, whenever Bop manages to bring down a kill, he sings to it - a weird, lilting cat-croon that is quite different to his usual vocabulary, and which I have heard him use in no other context. It is as if he is mourning a dear friend, unable to understand why his companion of so many joyful minutes has suddenly quit the game midplay.

Certainly, he does nothing so vulgar as try to eat them: he goes on playing, and then - when they don't wake up - he makes eulogies. Contrast to Nano, who, owing to Bop's habit of eating both their dinners, often subsists on a diet composed enitrely of mice. She hunts with the brutal efficiency of the true predator, and eats in quick, small bites lest we try to steal her food. Her only efforts at display are to run in very quickly, prey in mouth, and growl, thereby announcing her prowess - but then she darts back out again, through the window and into the night. Or afternoon. Or morning.

But Bop - bless his velvet paws - is a special case. And I think, after our recent trip to Sydney, that I finally understand why.

As a kitten, our old neighbours gave him a particular cat-toy their own pet had rejected: a plush mouse, about the size of a golf ball, which squeaked realistically whenever it was moved. It didn't run on batteries, nor was it a chew-toy: it was more the kind of mechanism one finds in those little insect boxes in National Geographic, where the act of tilting said box causes it to chirrup. In any case, Bop fell madly in love - but when we moved to Melbourne, the mouse got left behind.

Recently, my parents found it again. We took brought it home after Christmas. Bop was wary at first, but seemingly, his memory of it has returned, because in almost a week and a half, he hasn't left the damn thing alone. He sleeps with it, either cuddled between his paws, safe under his belly or tucked beneath his chin. He disembowls it, bites it, chews it, rolls on it, throws it around and chases it, and throughout all this activity, the mouse talks back to him: ee! ee! ee!

I must conclude, therefore, that the toy mouse has warped his idea of death. It never dies. It is never silenced by fear. It is a worthy adversary, constantly returning, able to be flung down the hall in full chorus by any passing human and still be licked, chewed and purred over for the better part of two hours. Until the toy came back, it was a once-a-month-but-rarely event that we saw Bop with a real mouse, and then it would never be for long: either the mouse would die, or he'd let it escape. But now, whenever he's had a long stint with his toy, he goes and fetches a real mouse. And looks disappointed when it expires, or - presumably - we don't throw it for him to fetch. (He does play fetch, incidentally. Clearly some wires are crossed.)

Pet psychologists everywhere, eat your heart out.

(Anti) Resolutions

At this time of year, tradition dictates a list of resolutions for the new annum - things we will strive to improve upon, take up or cut back for the wellbeing of our collective flesh and psyches. I have many such plans for 2008, but as listing them would constitute a trite and obvious exercise for everyone, here instead are ten things I will NOT be doing:

1. I will never again purchase and consume an entire family-size barbeque chicken in one go.

2. Bored to hunger, I will not return multiple times to hang on the door of my snackless fridge, hoping that somehow, new food has grown since I last looked.

3. I will no longer leave my clean washing on the line for a week and a half, then become irritated when it gets rained upon.

4. I will not ignore whatever housework needs doing in favour of sprawling listlessly on the lounge and bemoaning the fact that I have nothing to do.

5. I will not leave my shoes under the loungeroom table, the kitchen table, or anywhere else they can be simultaneously hidden from view and tripped over.

6. I will no longer rent shitty movies and fail to return them on time. Why the hell should I pay more for not having watched the entirety of Daredevil or Caligula? They suck.

7. I will no longer pretend that my preference for drinking bourbon and coke isn't boganly.

8. I will stop spending so much Goddam time on Facebook. Seriously. I mean it!

9. I will not learn to tap-dance.

And, finally:

10. I will not, under any circumstances - no matter how dire - regret that John Howard lost the election.