From Forgotten Gems To Polished Turds

And no: it doesn't matter how carefully you polish a turd. It's still a turd.

I got an invite to go out for a bit of a birthday thing with Chris Rattray, one of the Cool Shite team, and a boon buddy. Chris is edging his way up the ladder towards middle age, and I felt that moral support from someone a few rungs ahead of him was in order, so I agreed to go.

Tragically, Chris is a genre cinemophile -- and the only genre-type movie playing on the night of his birthday was Wrath Of The Titans. In 3 fucking D.

I'll digress a moment here, and point out that this is pretty much  the last time I'll actually go to the cinema. Prices had already risen to the point where cinema outings had become a very rare treat for the kids... but last night, I actually forked out $20.50 to see a movie. Yeah, sure... I got a pair of shoddy plastic goddam 3D glasses in that price, but honestly, who the fuck cares? That's more than the price of a sixpack of very drinkable, very decent premium Tasmanian beer, and I can tell you that very, very few movies are more entertaining than a sixpack these days. So yes: the price of a cinema ticket has officially climbed so high that I've pulled the plug. The boys and I will see The Avengers, because I promised them we would -- but that will be the last one.

The simple economics are too obvious, but I'll run through them once more for folks who haven't looked in here on the topic. First, I have to drive about fifty km to Launceston. Round-trip is about a hundred km, therefore. Costs about ten bucks in fuel, takes an over an hour to make the two-way trip because of the winding road. Second: for three kids and myself, the ticket price alone is now something like sixty or seventy dollars if the goddam film is in 3 fucking D, and not a whole lot less if it's shot in simple Sanityvision.  Third: the kids want popcorn... and it costs a fortune, and tastes like shit. Fourth: like as not, the cinema will be full of nimrods with mobile phones. Fifth: there will be at least twenty minutes of bullshit advertising. Sixth: parking will cost me about three bucks. Seventh: when you're in town for two hours for a film, plus another hour or so travel time, you have to expect to feed the kids, and a meal out will cost probably fifty bucks again.

And finally, chances are the movie will be shithouse anyway.

So, you know -- I'm a little saddened, but I've hit the point where I can't find any plausible reason to justify supporting the local cinema any farther. Not when we can wait a few months for the DVD version of the film and watch it in our loft with the dropdown screen and the digital projector and the home-made buttery popcorn and a sixpack of beer -- and still save a buttload of money on the deal, and even better, keep a copy of the film to see again if it's actually worth the effort.

It's tragic, in a way. Movies, cinemas, drive-in theatres - they were a big part of my childhood. They were a special treat, and there was a genuine excitement in going. But the social side of cinema has been dying in the arse since the advent of multiplexes, and frankly, I can't even justify the expense for my kids any more.

Cinema in the sense of going out to a movie centre is dead, folks. Maybe it's still on its feet right now, but that won't last. Diminishing returns and the simple cost of running those multiplexes will kill them off. The only ones that survive will be the ones smart enough to change their business model so they can sell an all-around experience, not just a crappy seat for yet another crappy movie.

I know what I really wish, though. I wish I could take my boys to see rough-and-ready Hong Kong action flicks at the old Chinatown Cinema in Fortitude Valley, like I did with my friends back in the early nineties, before the Fitzgerald Inquiry identified the place as a hotbed of drug dealing and shut it down. The movies were shite, of course, but we'd smuggle in a couple bottles of cheap booze plus mixers, buy a bunch of bizarro Chinese snacks, and then sit in the old upstairs balcony. Christ... there were times we laughed so fucking hard I don't know why nobody choked to death.

But that's what I  mean by an all-around experience, you see? We didn't really go for the movies, though they were a big ball of badly-dubbed furious kung-fun for sure, yeah. We went to sit up there in that decaying balcony, sneaking drinks, cheering for the good guys, booing the bad guys and making snarky comments about the fucking awful Engrish subtitles -- and it was worth every goddam cent we spent.

My kids aren't going to get that experience. Nor will I have the chance to do it again. Such is life -- right, Ned? Well, cinema had its run. It'll be interesting to see what comes next. I hope it's not just sitting alone in the house watching movies off the 'Net, though. We're already isolated enough. All the old social experiences have been commercialised or privatised or brutally organised or even flat out illegalised, and there's fuck-all left for people who want to get together and just kick on, have a good time. I really don't know where my kids are going to find the kind of bonding experiences that I found with my friends at college, and that makes me sad. I'm not prone to idealising the past, but the truth is that I just don't see how the fuck the poor bastards are going to have fun.

Oh, that's right. I was going to say something about Wrath Of The Titans, wasn't I? Well, it doesn't really rate much. Sam Worthington has a fluffy new hairdo. Rafe Fiennes and Liam Neeson are still fucking ridiculous, playing Greek gods. The CGI is groovier than ever. To be fair, I was expecting a dog of a movie, and I got one -- but where the last Titans flick was a scabrous, mangy, dysenteric stray mongrel lying in the gutter after being hit by a car... well, Wrath of the Titans is still a dog. But it's a dog with a home and a collar, at least. Even if that home is a half-wrecked caravan up on blocks in front of a burned-out Housing Commission hovel.

Nevertheless, there's no fucking way it's worth $20.50, and I'd urge any of you who really feel the need to see the sequel to the remake of a campish 80s film best known for Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion work to wait until you can rent it on DVD. Or even download it, if you've got the bandwidth.

But if you do -- invite a few friends, grab some booze, and take the piss out of the damned thing, eh? Because I can imagine few sadder, lonelier, more soul-destroyingly masturbatory acts than watching this fucking dog of a movie at home, by yourself.

Forgotten Gems: The Three Musketeers

I watched The Three Musketeers with the boys a couple weeks back.

No, not that stupid, frivolous bit of gear with Orlando Bloom as Buckingham and Mila Jovovich as Milady de Winter. Nor the squeaky-clean Disney-backed Brat Pack version that so many people seem to idolise, with Tim Curry chewing the scenery in red robes as Richelieu, and Oliver Platt/Charlie Sheen/Kiefer Sutherland hogging the limelight as the infamous swordslinging trio. Nor even the energetic but silly Gene Kelly version, with dance numbers between the duels.

No, the version we watched came out in 1973. The screenplay was written by George Macdonald Fraser, who famously wrote the Flashman books, amongst many other titles. And the cast list? You can't get more than two or three names in without stopping to say "Holy fuck, Batman, how did they shove so much awesome into a single movie?"

This is the movie which brought us a wide-eyed Michael York as an often-shirtless D'artagnan full of naive optimism and energy. A still-young, only-slightly-beefy Oliver Reed brings a real sense of menace and danger to the role of Athos. Christopher Lee, only twenty years after serving his country as a true killer -- a Commando -- in world war II is tragically underused as the one-eyed villain Rochefort. Richard Chamberlain remains the prettiest Aramis ever to reach the screen. And if you need a commanding presence for Richelieu, it's hard to figure somebody with more gravitas than Charlton Heston.

Eye candy? Well, I have to admit I wasn't much impressed by Faye Dunaway's version of Milady de Winter. But they needed someone for D'artagnan's paramour, the Queen's dressmaker Constance Bonacieux. Possibly, casting Raquel Welch at the height of her pneumatic pulchritude was overkill... but the producers knew that, and they pitched her as comedy relief, making her accident-prone and clumsy, resulting in occasional slapstick gold, as well as enough cleavage to disguise any number of plot holes or historical liberties.

Of course, if you're talking about comedy relief it's very hard to go past Spike Milligan, isn't it? He turns up as the aged landlord Bonacieux, paranoid and cuckolded husband to the ridiculously beautiful Constance. Milligan makes a meal of the role, endowing Bonacieux with his characteristically energetic and twitchy vein of madness. It's lovely to see  him on-screen, and particularly gorgeous to see Charlton Heston, utterly nonplussed as Richelieu, attempting to make sense of Milligan's slyly madcap goonishness.

The movie is bursting with vigor and energy. The fight sequences are frequent, and wonderfully choreographed. There's no sense of artificiality here, no staged elegance. Fighters grab scenery, throw bottles, and fence with a feeling of jittery energy which is more convincing than any amount of smoothly shot skill, though there's plenty of athleticism on display. More importantly, the fights have that quality of story-telling which makes them satisfying in their own right, adding to the plot as well as advancing it, building character through action. The scene in which the penniless musketeers stage a brawl in a tavern to cover their food-filching is worthy of Jackie Chan's finest moments - if not in sheer physical prowess, then at least for the effortless combination of comedy and action.

Another remarkable aspect of the film is its attention to historic elements. Not so much the broad strokes of history, no, but fine details: the busy laundry in the palace, where the women are hard at work while D'artagnan and the Musketeers create havoc while attempting to protect the Duke of Buckingham from various villains. Take an eye off the action, and you'll see a very serious effort to reconstruct scenes from the era, done so very carefully and yet with so little fanfare that they give the film a far deeper and richer texture than one has any right to expect. The costuming alone far outshines most modern efforts for verisimilitude and interest.

If the film fails at all, it is because too much respect was offered to Fraser's screenwriting. Those who know the Flashman books will be aware that Fraser loves to offer historical asides, and pursue all kinds of interesting side issues while his eponymous hero flounders caddishly about the landscape, from bed to bed, peril to peril. This version of The Musketeers is paced in similarly episodic fashion, without a real sense of the three-act structure, without the inevitable rising tension that we have come to expect as the immutable staple of action cinema. In short: it's not so much a true action film as a cinematic, historical romp. It's shot through with comedy which completely annihilates any suspense or tension that may have been expected. There's no question at any point as to whether the Musketeers are going to thwart the machinations of Richelieu and Milady de Winter. How could they possibly fail? They are, after all, the heroes of the piece, and as long as they are "all for one and one for all", no villain can be too vile, no danger too desperate, no woman too virtuous to defeat the Three Musketeers and the doughty D'artagnan.

The verdict? It's not a textbook film. The structure and the pacing are ineffective in strict cinematic terms. But who the hell comes to The Three Musketeers for pure cinema? The boys and I loved it. We cheered where we should, laughed frequently, and took great delight in appreciating performers like Christopher Lee and Oliver Reed at their finest.

Do yourself a favour. Grab a copy of this film. Roast a chicken or two, grab some fresh, crusty bread, and break the neck off a couple bottles of good, hearty red wine. Then settle down and enjoy a raucous, knockabout journey through a heroic history that never was... but really should have been.

Some Confusion As To The Nature Of The Holiday

It's Easter morning. We've had the traditional chocolate egg hunt. It went pretty well -- there are at least three of the bastards still out there in the wild somewhere, unfound, waiting to be devoured by vermin or found in several months when they've gone manky and horrid. It's like that every time. Every year I promise myself that I'll keep notes next time. I never remember.

It's a cool, dim, grey autumn morning. The rain comes and goes in sheets. The light is soft, with a gentle, sad quality that makes me feel good about being inside the house with my family. The kids are stuffing themselves on shoddy chocolate, and playing with a set of  UHF walkie-talkies I picked up a few years back. They're happy. Natalie is playing Plants vs Zombies on her iPad. She's happy too.

We also had the less traditional Easter Bastard Bunny visit. That happens when I make up some nice Easter baskets for the kids, with chocolate eggs and bunnies and stuff, and I put them in a cupboard awaiting The Day. But somehow, that swine E. Bunny turns up in the night and steals all the baskets. Fortunately, he generally leaves a series of cunning clues behind. This time he left a series of digital photos embedded as random files on Jake's computer. Each photo depicted some place around the house or property, and when the kids managed to figure out what the picture showed, they found a note giving them the next filename.

Ten photos or so later (and no end of running about) they located their baskets in a box up in the cinema-shed.

Jake in particular enjoyed himself. He played the 'hacker', while the Mau-Mau and Genghis did the legwork. They would charge off to each photo-site, and call in on the walkie-talkie to give Jake the next photo-filename. He would then find the file in his computer, and describe it to them so they could run off to the next location. Of course, sometimes the photos were a bit obscure (damn that swine Bunny anyway!) and they all had to cluster around the computer to figure it out... but by and large, they had a tremendous time.

Out of curiosity, once the dust had settled and chocolate cravings had been dealt with, I asked them as a group why we were celebrating the holiday. The replies came back in order, eldest to  youngest.

Jake: "Eostre. It's about Eostre."

Okay. Full marks to the boy for knowing about the ancient Roman goddess, often symbolised by a rabbit, who gave her name to the Easter holiday. But wait -- what about Genghis?

Genghis: "I thought it was something to do with Mithras."

Aha. Yes. Genghis remembers the discussion we had about the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the official religion of Rome -- and how he had to win the army over to make it work. And the army of Rome was pretty solidly Mithraist in those days, apparently. So the version of Christianity which Constantine accepted... well, it revolved around a solar-hero type, born at the winter solstice, son of a God of light, raising the dead; eating his flesh and drinking his blood was a sacrament that brought life eternal, etc. So -- points to Genghis as well.

The Mau-Mau? Oh, she really understands. "No, it's about Jesus who came back from being dead at Easter with chocolate eggs. And then at Christmas, there's a new Jesus."

Hmmm. Well, never mind.

Happy Eostre!

Things That Are Making Me Cranky Right Now

Flucloxacillin. Let's start there, shall we? It's supposed to be taken on an empty stomach, at six hourly intervals.  Now, while six or seven hours is a good night of sleep for me, let's think about it a little here. Especially, let us take into account the fact that I'm one of a minority of people who gets bloody awful stomach upsets from this noxious drug.

I took my first midnight tablet on Sunday night. At one in the morning, I woke up from a dream of being repeatedly stabbed in the belly to discover that apparently I'd accidentally ingested an Alien (from the movies) and it was trying to claw it's way out of my upper stomach sort of region.

One does not sleep through a personalised recreation of the infamous 'chestburster' sequence, I assure you. In fact, one gets up and goes after some milk and bicarb. Bleah.

I have since discovered that if I stay vertical around the time of swallowing the medication, the fallout is limited to minor pain and nausea, plus burpage. Much burpage.

Now, of course, the question is why I'd be taking this crap. And the answer is perplexing. Saturday night I noticed a knot in  my right calf, low down, on the inside. It felt like someone had kicked me fairly hard, or hit me with a stick, and there was a knot of bruising, waiting to resolve.

My lifestyle being what it is, I assumed that someone had in fact kicked me, or possibly hit me with a stick, and I simply hadn't noticed. For example: if somebody had thrown a good fore-arm block at me while I was attacking with a right-foot inside-line crescent kick, I could well have acquired such a bruise without noticing it for a couple days. These things happen.

However, by Sunday morning there was a reddened area on the skin of my calf, and the pain was spreading. Hmm. I called my deeply sympathetic wife to look it over. She declared that it might be a 'skin infection', or perhaps a little venous thrombosis.

I didn't like either of those options very much. There wasn't even a break in the skin, and even though I do sit on my butt and write a lot, I'm pretty active. There's a lot of getting up and wandering around, and gardening, and martial arts, and kids... I didn't figure myself for a DVT candidate.

Natalie told me that my dry skin doesn't present the best of infection barriers, though. Huh. Who knew? I've never been prone to this sort of thing. Anyhow - I drew a circle around the red blotch with a felt pen, and left it at that.

A couple hours later, down in Scottsdale with the kids, I looked at my leg and saw the redness had moved well past the margin of the ring I'd drawn. Couple that with the fact that the pain was making walking tricky, and I figured I'd better do something. Natalie sent me down to the hospital where a kind, if slightly vampiric, nurse checked my pulse (fine) blood pressure (fine) and my blood sugar (fine) while I sat in a chair and told the kids not to jump around on the gurney they'd commandeered.

My wife the doc breezed in and looked at the spot. She conferred with another doc. Yes, they decided. Skin infection. Antibiotics were in order.

Hence the appalling goddam flucloxacillin.

In the meantime the skin infection - cellulitis, apparently - is also making me cranky. The drugs are finally winding it back, but it's relinquishing its grip most reluctantly. In the meantime the area is wildly sensitive, and extremely painful to touch. Apparently this is one of the fun features of cellulitis. So much of my day is spent cursing, as I bang my leg, or shift my weight wrong, or even roll over in an unfortunate manner should I be in bed.

Ouch. Dammit.

Well, never mind. At least the drugs appear to be doing the job they're supposed to do. That's something for which to be grateful, in a world where drug-resistant bacteria are on the rise. The way the goddam stuff was spreading, I have a sneaking suspicion that without antibiotics, the answer would have involved anaesthetic and a bone-saw...

"True Bromance"? No. I Don't Think So.

I  had an interesting experience a while back. I cannot recall the details of the context, but a friend of mine used the word 'bromance' to lightly characterise a relationship between a couple of males. I can't remember whether they were fictional or real, or whatever.

I wasn't all that impressed, and I pointed out that I found the term dismissive, belittling, and potentially quite offensive.

My friend was genuinely surprised, and stated that she didn't find the term at all offensive.

I pointed out that as she's female, perhaps it wasn't up to her. That perhaps "mere girl talk" hadn't seemed offensive to men who dismissed women's speech in that fashion - and that there were hundreds of similar examples of language which had been used by men in a dismissive fashion; language which we are not permitted to use in that manner any more.

We left it there. I'm not sure how effectively I communicated what I had to say, but I had no particular desire to force the issue either. I value friendship far above political correctness.

What surprised me, at the time, was that the friend in question is highly literate, strongly feminist, and an excellent communicator -- and she chose to defend her position by saying that she didn't see the term as offensive.

Yes, I know. I caught her off guard with my reaction, and I expect she'd never thought about it before. But then, as a man I certainly don't get to use that excuse, do I? "Oh, I'm sorry. Do you find 'the little woman' a demeaning description of my wife? I don't see it as offensive."

And really... let's look at the word, shall we? It comes from this concept of "bro", which you'll find all over the Internet. It's used in an almost universally derogatory and dismissive fashion. It's used to suggest that the speaker is parodying a class of lowbrow, cliched fratboy in the USA. In NZ, it's exaggerated street-speak, more or less associated with the Kiwi equivalent of bogan-dom. Hell, it's clearly been a means of parodying and dismissing a certain kind of male speech ever since that YouTube video with the beached whale. (I'm beached, bro. Beached as!) It's used as parody in pub culture here in Oz. In fact, even my nine and eleven year old boys use it as dismissive parody to describe the moronic chest-thumpers in the schoolyard: Come at me, bro!

Men being what they are, I've seen it used between friends in an affectionate way. And in that sense, it frequently becomes self-parody. But then,  if I recall correctly, it's acceptable for black Americans to call each other 'nigger'. On the other hand, use the word from another background, and you're in a lot of trouble.

I'd argue that it's difficult for a thinking, careful person to say that "Bro" doesn't come loaded with negative, dismissive, derisory connotations. And I'd argue even harder that a thinking, careful feminist really ought to be aware of what it means to be on the wrong end of a gender-specific term of derision.

The second half of the word -- "romance". Nothing wrong there, right? Except the reason I was upset is that the relationship in question was one of those strong male friendships. The kind we used to call "mateship", except that John Howard chewed on the word until it was a mangled pulp that nobody could stand: you know what I mean.

So, romance: the online dictionaries supply a meaning which is essentially identical to 'fantasy' as we now understand it, in terms of 'imaginative genre'. But that's not how it's used in "bromance'. Nope. It's used in the modern sense of 'romantic love', as characterised by a vast body of modern 'romance' fiction, with overtones of life-bonding as a couple, and strong implications of sexual desire.

Combining those two ideas, you get a couple of lowbrow fratboy types looking longingly into one another's eyes with some kind of half-suppressed homosexual agenda. This is precisely how it is used: to belittle and potentially embarrass men into dragging their behaviour towards a socially acceptable norm. It's similar to "get a room!" It's a derogatory label applied to a friendship which is annoying someone else by intruding onto their life.

I find it fascinating. The whole encounter was eye-opening. It makes me ask questions.

First... while I understand that my friend didn't mean the term offensively and didn't expect it to be offensive, I think that implies she didn't really consider the term very carefully. Certainly, I know she'd likely be offended if I used a term implying that strong female friendships must have a lesbian subtext. After all -- wasn't that half the controversy behind the movie Thelma and Louise?

Is the problem that there's no 'official name' for the kind of friendships that men form, which can last a lifetime, and see them trust one another with their lives? I suppose that could be an issue. I know a lot of men who have those sorts of friendships.  I don't suppose it's a purely masculine characteristic, mind you. There's no official name for the female version of such a relationship either. But that doesn't mean I could carelessly start labelling them 'girlymances'. I can imagine the response if I did.

Then there are the other elements of the encounter. The sheer surprise that I'd actually spoken up, and voiced my feelings; surprise that I might be offended by such a widespread term. Well - the term's widespread, yes. But then, so were blonde jokes. Common usage doesn't matter if it's derogatory and dismissive: the word gay taught us that, didn't it?  Personally, I can't imagine using the term "bromance" - not unless I was deliberately insulting and dismissing the kind of self-important, self-involved, hyper-entitled man-children I see emerging from the most egregious sections of the disaster areas that American society has produced. And even then, I'd probably not be comfortable using the term. Friendship is still a real and valuable thing, even where it occurs between dolts.

And further: yes, I did speak up. But I didn't expect it to bring the conversation to a crashing halt. If I'd been on the other side of that exchange; if it had been I who unwittingly said something which came across offensively (and I have, on many occasions) I'd be inclined to take a step back and offer an apology. And I do recall that an apology was offered. But way, way down on my list of responses would be "Oh, I don't find the term offensive"  - because I've had it drummed into me that it isn't my opinion which counts on that issue.

Let's be clear: I've had that lesson taught to me so thoroughly I doubt I could even form the words in that situation.

If I didn't think the term was offensive, I'd apologise anyway, and start listening. And I might ask, as diplomatically as I could, how the term generated offense. And if the explanation was pure politically-correct bullshit, I'd nod, and make a note never to use the term in that company again. And yes, that has happened.  But equally, sometimes I've had people take five minutes and open my head up for me, show me how the assumptions inherent in my use of the term needed to be reconsidered. I've valued every one of those experiences, and I respect everyone who has ever taken the time to help set me straight.

I have tremendous respect for the friend I mention in this matter. If she's thought about the encounter since then, I expect she's probably mulled a few of these ideas over for herself, because she's very sharp, and very thoughtful. However, it's also possible that she's dismissed it as an awkward moment between two people operating off different definitions. It's not really a very important thing, after all.

But then... where does it stop?

There's a double handful or so, maybe more, of people out there who know that they could call on me at the worst of times, and I would answer without question. The majority of them are male, but there are a healthy number of women on that list. I respect all of them. I'd argue that a genuine definition of 'love' would have to incorporate the kind of feelings I hold for them. But between the women in question and myself, it's not a 'romance', whatever else it may be. And these women would rightly be insulted if they thought my respect and love for them was in some way predicated on romantic expectations. They earned the right to be my true friends, often through very difficult times together.

And I am proud of these friendships, every one: with the men, with the women alike. These are the people in whose company I would stand at the end of times, against all things. I count myself among the most fortunate of people that I have their good will.

It's not 'bromance'. That's the short of it.

The rest of it is too long, and way too complex. It has to do with ideas of power and responsibility. It has to do with questioning the old rules -- and remembering to question the new ones as well. In the meantime, I have to go and cook dinner. Simple stuff tonight: a version of chicken parmigiana and a salad. And if I can find some clean latex gloves, I'm going to wash them out, then fill them up with custard and tie them off, so my kids can take gross, wibbly custard-glove hands to school tomorrow in their lunch...

What? Oh. Right. Yeah. Quick! Catch Up!

So, I've started teaching a new ju-jitsu class. It's at Launceston, which is a bit of a trek, and it's for juniors at Launceston Grammar. What can I say? Natalie's angling to get Jake into the school next year. She mentioned what I do. Next thing I know, they're emailing me.

Well, okay. I don't really mind. I get paid, and I like doing this stuff anyhow, and I like working with kids. But that means I'm driving into Launceston four nights out of five most Monday to Friday weeks, and on the fifth night (Wednesday) I teach two and a half hours of ju-jitsu out here.

Of course, it does make the whole cooking thing a challenge. It's not so bad Monday nights, because I'm usually back by six or so. Tuesday nights I prep something before I leave. Wednesday nights is often up to Natalie, though tonight I'm setting up a Malay-style soup. Thursdays I just have to deal with it when I get back, and Fridays (I drive into town to pick up the boys from orchestra; Natalie stays later for Big Person's Orchestra) likewise I have to do a bit of prep beforehand.

Meanwhile, the Mau-Mau has joined the ju-jitsu classes. She just stood up one day and insisted she wanted to go. I was a little wary; she's not so good on 'obedience' and 'paying attention', and I really don't need her in the class if she's going to be difficult.

Turns out the 'difficulties' are all on the other kids. The Mau-Mau apparently loves this shit. She picked up the basic break falls in minutes, and by the end of her first session, she was throwing and wrestling and generally walking over the top of kids with a head or more of size and a year or so of experience on her. She learns as fast as anyone I've yet seen, including her older brother, and she's terrifyingly enthusiastic about it. I've just now organised her very first gi (uniform) and she's bursting with eagerness to turn up in class wearing her very own white belt and all.

Oh, goody.

Meanwhile, it appears I've just about convinced my prof to accept my research proposal for the MA. The first three proposals I put past him were, apparently, a leetle too ambitious. PhD size or better, I'm told. But the latest appears to be properly focused and all that good stuff, so all he wants is a touch of rewriting, and then we can submit it.

Oh, goody goody.

The local high school is doing a performance of "The Three Musketeers" this year. The script is... actually, it's pretty embarrassing, but mostly that's not my problem. Well, with the exception of one scene I've agreed to rewrite for the drama teacher, 'cos she's a friend and a good soul and means the very best for the students. Oh, and I've also agreed to create the fight sequences for them. Which should be especially entertaining. I've done very little formal stage-fight stuff before, but I'm familiar with the principles, and there's plenty of material available to learn from. Plus I can call a few friends for advice if I think I need it. I don't think I'll need it, though.

The spring has finally settled down again. I pumped lots of water to the tank earlier in this year because the little waterhole had gradually filled with leaves and twigs and sticks after something like twenty-odd years of serving the household. So after the tank was nice and full, we engaged a local chap with a digger to come and scoop it all out -- and scoop he did, oh yes. The spring-pond is now deeper than it's ever been, and cleared all around the banks. It took about three weeks for the fine clay to settle, but it's looking really good now. Hopefully there will be a bit of regrowth before the heavier rains of winter, so the clay banks don't run into the pool...

Meanwhile, the new chookshed is making my life goddam miserable. It's one of those stupid little tin aviaries, and unfortunately, the instructions are... moderately unclear in places. Doesn't help that Natalie parked the car on the edge of one of the larger pieces the other day. I can fix that, I reckon. Probably.

Mmf. Car's in service today. Nearly forgot that. They gave me a loaner, which is good, because I've got a lot of crap to do, and I've got to get back down the hill to teach ju-jitsu this afternoon. Hope the service goes well. I dodged about six different wallabies last night on the way home, but one of the fuckers managed to charge headfirst into the right-front corner of the car. Stupid goddam macropod.

Oh. Washing machine is done again. Better go and put a new load on. Yep. Clouding over? Yep. Hmm. This lot better go in the dryer, I guess. The line's mostly full now anyhow.

And last: Anastascia Palazsczukuzk? Oh, holy shitballs, Queensland. If that's the best your Labor party can do, you can expect to be living under Campbell Newman's anus for at least twenty years, I'd guess. And if you want any further details on that opinion, you should ask John Birmingham, or Bob Heather -- or anybody else who had to deal with Anastascia Unspellable in her days as a student politician at Uni of Qld.

Oh, how the chickens return to the roost, eh? You meet a person when you're in your twenties. You make a rational, morally defensible decision not to practice retrospective abortion. Twenty years later, they're gearing up to lead the entire state...  so, did you make a mistake? And if so, do you rectify it? Or do you just piss off to Tasmania, and let the Queensland voters deal with it?

I dunno. Not my problem, is it?

What Keeps You Going?

Jake asked me a challenging question this evening. "What do you look forward to?" he said. What he meant, after a bit of question-and-answer clarification, was the old puzzle: why do you bother getting out of bed in the morning? Why do you keep moving through life?

It's a good question. Great question, actually. Because if you haven't got an answer for it, then either you're living like an automaton -- and yes, I know a lot of people do -- or you're in serious trouble. It's certainly a hell of a question to get from your eleven-year-old kid.

We talked. And his viewpoint was easy enough to understand. He sees me cooking on a daily basis. He sees me around the house, doing relatively mundane stuff. And of course, a lot of the things I do which mightn't seem mundane to an outsider, like running a small martial arts school, for instance - well, he's grown up around me. It's routine, isn't it?

I solved this one for myself a long time ago. I don't spend a lot of time 'looking forward to' anything. I have learned the Buddhist lesson: I love the moments of my life. I try to pay attention. And I try to ensure that the choices I make belong to me, and allow me to be myself. (If that doesn't make sense... ah, well. A lot of stuff near the core of Buddhism - particularly Zen - is slippery, and difficult to put in words.)

So what do I do that's worth continuing? Well, hell. 'Most everything. I love writing. Creating characters, stories, wrestling with ideas. Making a story work, and work well - that's a hell of a thing. Cooking. New ingredients. Old favourites. Good wine. Games. Building and maintaining things so that they work well, look nice, and will last. Planting trees, and then picking the fruit from them. Learning new things: languages, skills, philosophical concepts... it's all good.

It's all small stuff, innit? But what is a life if not a collection of small stuff? Yes, there are people who lead Big Lives, and change the world. Can't say as I'd like to trade places with most of them, though. And the ones that I do admire -- well, mostly they got there by sticking to their personal principles, and living their lives as they saw fit. Except, of course, that they happened to be in a time or a place where behaving that way put them at odds with the world at large -- and they also happened to have enough leverage to make a difference.

Small stuff.

Yesterday, one of my young ju-jitsu students worked her way up to a brown-belt level rebreakable board. She's been working on the thing for a few weeks now. After class, she balances it neatly between two chairs, and she goes after it with a hammer fist strike. When she started this routine, she was working at the orange-belt level board. I let her hammer away at it for a week or so before I suggested to her what she might be doing wrong, and how she might do better.

Why? Because it was her project. Personally; something she chose for herself. The student in question is about fourteen. She's not particularly sporty, physical, or superfit. She's always been a little reluctant to commit herself in attack, always a little nervous about the possibility of being hurt in defense. And faced with challenging physical tasks, she hasn't always had the confidence to go after them with everything she's got. All of which is okay, because I figured if she stuck around long enough, we'd work through that stuff. So when she started hammering on the orange/red board, I simply let her - because she needed to know it was her choice, and the first thing she needed to learn was that even if she didn't have the technique to break the thing, she still knew enough to hit it safely, and not be injured.

 A week or so of that, and then I quietly pointed out that she was really only using her arm, and not focusing her weight and the power of her body through the strike. We talked about balance, and breathing, and about bringing the whole of your movement to one point, and the next time she went after that board, it snapped without fuss.

I didn't realise she was going on to the brown board, though. Rebreakable boards are tough plastic slabs, made in two parts, which join in the middle. They're calibrated to snap when appropriate levels of force are applied. You can get them from white through to black, and by the time you're working on the brown board, you're supposedly snapping something like four cm or so of pineboard. I wouldn't know, personally - but I can say this: you have to hit the thing hard, and you have to hit it accurately, and if you don't hit it properly you can seriously hurt your hand.

(Breaking boards isn't really part of ju-jitsu, usually. But I learned years ago that young students absolutely love breaking shit. Okay, fair enough. They learn to focus, they learn to concentrate, and they learn that they can generate useful amounts of striking power - and they really enjoy doing it. Rebreakable boards are, in the long run, a lot cheaper than buying a sawmill...)

Yesterday evening, when the class was over and we were putting the mats away, I heard a yelp of triumph. And when I turned around, my student was holding up the brown board, in two separate pieces. I congratulated her -- and then I told her I hadn't seen it, and she should do it again.

Which she did.

Yes, it's just a slab of plastic. No, it's not an attacker determined to kill. But that's not what it's about, is it? That board is a symbol. It's a thing she couldn't do. It's a thing she couldn't bring herself to do. It's a thing she was afraid of, a thing she thought was outside her physical abilities.

Today, her world is a fraction bigger than it was yesterday. Today, the word 'impossible' is smaller. And once you start that process -- once you get people to recognise that many of the limits on their lives exist only because they haven't been questioned and challenged -- why, that person will never be the same again.

The girl in question is deservedly proud of herself. I know that when she went home a few weeks ago having failed at the red board, her hand was stiff and sore. I also know that she came back, tried harder, and broke through into a space she'd never been before: and I know that for a while, at least, until she forgets and lapses into the more usual way of thinking, she will be wondering what other of her 'limits' she can smash.

I know also that the class I run encouraged her to do this, and gave her the space and the confidence to keep at it, and though I claim no credit whatsoever for her achievement, nevertheless I'm proud of her, and I'm pleased with my role in helping her get this far. And more: I believe in her. There's more to come. She still doesn't know her own strength, both physical and mental, and I think I can keep giving her incentive and encouragement and a bit of guidance for a while yet -- and maybe one day, she'll be one of the people who doesn't lapse back into accepting the imaginary limits which imprison 'most everybody.

That, to me, is a hell of a goal. Helping to free just one person from the mental prison that cages most of humankind... I believe that's a true and worthy task. More than a good enough reason to get up out of bed in the morning, even if I didn't have ten thousand other reasons already.