On the underground train above ground the whole carriage overheard two rather stoned young dudes speaking about Art, that is, themselves. As we unzipped the treetops people glanced at them, glanced away, smiled. One dude had a wry American accent and the upper hand. The other dude was Persian and explained at some length that […]
In New York I came into 34th St subway station to hear a bunch of dudes playing a kind of washboard bluegrass. They weren’t excellent but they had vigour. Called themselves the Ebony Hillbillies: cute. O you’re from Australia & you wanna make a record? Love to! Later I rang them up. “We’re not lettin […]
In my twenties I worked at the front desk of the Queensland Art Gallery for a while. It is huge and immaculate and rather hushed. One day an old man came in, wizened and bent. He approached the island of our desk across the marble floor. “This the art gallery?” Yes, I said. His hands […]
A friend of mine took her own life, from herself and from the rest of us, a little while back, perhaps eighteen months. After a long time another of her friends whom I didn’t know wrote to me in Berlin saying she had left behind a painting for me. We met when he was in […]
I went to see Paul Kelly play Berlin. I was going with my girlfriend and the evening of, she rang to say: I don’t feel well. I feel so tired and I just need to stay at home and curl on my couch. Can you go on your own? I went. Since I left my […]
Only Shirley Hazzard could end a novel by writing explicitly of a virgin woman’s clitoris – which she describes with a kind of cheerful poetic simplicity as ‘the final fleshly inch where he could wake her and touch her, and say her name’ – using it to literally embody survival, and art, and all of […]
I was working in a cafe, head down, muttering the words aloud under my breath as I forged down the page writing for hours. The man next to me started to take an interest. I was unwilling to give over my concentration to him but gradually angled my screen away to avert his possessive interest, […]
In the museum today we followed the script, that is, the writing. Ancient forms of writing carved in stone, and some felled onto papyrus that was torn out of its location later and jammed into ‘found’ metal boxes. What is it about inhumanity that allows one to covet a culture’s gorgeously wrought temple at the […]
This week I’m going home to Berlin to find an apartment of my own, via a writing sabbatical in Thailand which I suspect I will sleep through. What was supposed to be two weeks has turned into a six week endeavour. I have worked from dawn til night, busted my finger, worn myself to a […]
Mum’s just taken Dad on an outing & waving goodbye to them I began to cry. Soon it will be the long goodbye. My Dad seems so cheerful and excited, sitting up in his passenger seat having been hoisted up by two of us out of the wheeling chair. The carer said he woke up […]
Two hipsters compete in a Berlin bookshop, the day of David Bowie’s death Hipster One: I know, I mean I was like twelve when I heard ‘Changes’ for the first time. Hipster Two: I know, it’s like, I just… it’s like I had a personal connection. You know? Like I… Hipster One, abruptly: Yeah, everybody […]
It’s snowing! It’s snowing! It’s snowing! I came into a cafe going, It’s snowing, and she said, I know, and I said, But – it’s snowing! and then hours later walked out into the dark and under the golden lights every car wore a fresh crisp white bonnet, my old tears burst its banks, oh […]
Today I was writing in a cafe and when I pulled out my laptop to transcribe out of a messy notebook the woman next to me got up and slid between our tables, saying something over her shoulder under her breath. “I’ve just come from the office…” I was wondering why she would feel so […]
In my pajamas at 6pm: pajamas are my favourite clothes. The phone rings. It’s a woman I spent a recent evening immersed in, such kinship, a friend who’s an acquaintance, we hadn’t seen each other for fifteen years. We used once to live in the same tiny village, an island in the centre of town. […]
Went to my first life drawing class in eight years. Boy, was that challenging. For one thing, the models were clad rather than naked and I had never tried to draw drapery before. Also, they were never still. The organisers of this local class had asked a hairdresser who operates across the road to bring […]
Dancing in the dark. It’s so beautiful. I heard about it back in Melbourne, where it was born (and so was I), and just kept not going because I felt too shy to go on my own. In Berlin I signed up for the No Lights No Lycra facebook page and waited for them to […]
