tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post3604866723494876553..comments2023-06-21T18:53:11.897+10:00Comments on Pykk: justice to the smooth narrow leafUmbagollahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-23872681402652633072013-06-23T06:00:10.600+10:002013-06-23T06:00:10.600+10:00Ruthless roots. There's that line in the Murra...Ruthless roots. There's that line in the Murray about the tree tipping over to expose "the black star of that trick."<br /><br />I went looking for Dani's review -- I'll link -- http://dinneratcaphs.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/plaque-with-laurelUmbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-44081455600957882842013-06-22T19:08:43.635+10:002013-06-22T19:08:43.635+10:00Just because I can, Dani at DinnerAtCaphs quoted t...Just because I can, Dani at DinnerAtCaphs quoted this from M Barnard Eldershaw's Plaque with Laurel: <br />"if they had planted gumtrees in Commonwealth Avenue Canberra wouldn’t have been Canberra at all. The gumtrees would have laughed and laughed and laughed at all the by-laws and red-tape and the tin-pot bureaucratic gods, till Canberra fell down like a card-house. They had to get tame exotic trees to keep them in countenance."<br />Merciless gums!Whispering Gumshttp://whisperinggums.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-16180438088889258082013-06-16T19:48:50.354+10:002013-06-16T19:48:50.354+10:00Well, if you were doing a painting, I suppose you ...Well, if you were doing a painting, I suppose you would ie if you chose to make a detailed drawing of a rock rather than a landscape.zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-11598041652739174252013-06-14T17:05:20.612+10:002013-06-14T17:05:20.612+10:00Van Dyke is excellent. I'm up to page one hund...Van Dyke is excellent. I'm up to page one hundred and fourteen of a yellow paperback copy from an LDS publishing house called Peregrine Smith and so far he hasn't been issuing any aesthetic Ruskin-manifestos, but his love for the desert seems to be a love of being crushed or flattened or overwhelmed by colours in the sky, or by killer weather, or by hallucinatory scenery, "the poetry of its wide-spread chaos, the sublimity of its lonely desolation," or by silence, "The desert is overwhelmingly silent." He's observant, he'll describe the way the edge of a cumulus cloud changes colour at sunset, but he doesn't like little "pretty" things that want him to pay attention to them. "There is not a thing about it that is "pretty," and not a spot upon it that is "picturesque" in any Berkshire-Valley sense." He likes big inexorable masses. He gets scathing about himself. He's like a little chirrup. "You perhaps think to break the spell by raising your voice in a cry; but you will not do so again." Crying out at night, his own voice is one of those pretty extraneous things that he doesn't respect.<br /><br />That bit of Murray reminds me of a theme he's been circling around for years, the idea of being picked on. It's not there anywhere else in the poem, then suddenly it pops up. He's the opposite of Van Dyke in his own way, he wouldn't like nature coming at him in a merciless gang or large mass; he wants it touchable and singular. "Their humans, meeting them abroad, | often grab and sniff their hands." That's how he sees them. Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-20150538755365902412013-06-14T15:19:32.285+10:002013-06-14T15:19:32.285+10:00It's a word for the same thing -- that's t...It's a word for the same thing -- that's the connection. You pee, you wee, you're performing the same action. So: "instead of."Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-47078768822901056892013-06-14T12:42:38.824+10:002013-06-14T12:42:38.824+10:00'"Pee" they say instead of "wee...'"Pee" they say instead of "wee" in the musical Urinetown'<br /><br />"Pee" is abbreviation/euphemism for "piss"- I don't think it's connected to "wee" (origin unknown according to my dictionary) except by rime.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-61373390016933403172013-06-14T12:38:55.133+10:002013-06-14T12:38:55.133+10:00There really are desert people and anti-desert peo...There really are desert people and anti-desert people, mountain people and the reverse. The old idea of sublimity is that mountains and deserts are <i>frightening</i>, and they certainly used to be more dangerous than they are now. But the psychology is more complicated; there is a wide distribution of response.<br /><br />That John C. Van Dyke fellow sounds almost exactly like Ruskin.<br /><br />I am happy, as always, to fail to predict where my little squib could go. That Les Murray bit is outstanding.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-29176083865982291032013-06-14T10:54:32.337+10:002013-06-14T10:54:32.337+10:00I think I saw you quote the same Les Murray once. ...I think I saw you quote the same Les Murray once. It's <i>Eucalypts in Exile</i>. As for artistic projects, maybe you wouldn't know until you'd finished it whether your approach had been far off of up close; you wouldn't know how close you were to the thing until you could see the thing, and you wouldn't be able to see the thing until you'd finished the thing. And how would you measure?Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5424364424049242300.post-9656832496006128452013-06-13T18:58:55.554+10:002013-06-13T18:58:55.554+10:00I've never been against Macdonalds, because th...I've never been against Macdonalds, because they also let you pee/wee. Is one dilemma of setting out on an artistic project the question of whether to approach it from afar or right up close, do you think? I suppose I'm thinking of the visual arts - or am I? Maybe writers of fiction have to make a similar decision. I don't know. Burble, burble, burble. The one certain thing is that that is a v nice bit of Les Murray (aren't they all?)zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.com