“You miserable, mangey, manky maggot! I bloody kill you! How dare you come into my restaurant and make such demands of me! Beg! Beg for mercy you flake of feeble fuzz. I’ll crush you with my clenched palm and smear you over the window with my elbow. Now, run! RUN! What you still here for? RUN!“ Continue reading ‘The Reprint: ‘The Victor’’
Monthly Archive for November, 2008
Tramlines score the roads of Melbourne; thin white loaf tins heaving her people between the suburbs. During the morning commute I observe Melbourne’s schoolboys with gusto. Their uniforms are so far from kool, I feel embarrassed for them. Ill-fitting blazers hang off their ink-stained wrists, while a flash of knobbly pale knees peek out between their oh-so-boring socks and shorts. They gather like identical grey rainclouds, each given a dull dollop of curls to swirl above a pair of pinpoint eyes that ride the river of childhood over the bridge of their noses between the pools of pink cheeks. There are countless other characters and clans that board these trams; I think up a manuscript almost daily from those short thrusts along the trolley’s grooves, then as I skip down the short steps I become hijacked by some other scene. Continue reading ‘The Big Shift’
Have you ever hitchhiked via tractor to a faraway mountain village in rural China, to dine on warm bee larvae and pollute the local culture with their first experience of iPods, Dire Straits and Jack Daniels? Continue reading ‘The Reprint: ‘Me Ol’ China Plate’’
She sits atop a stool. Her plump figure appearing not unlike a pumpkin, ripe for pumpkin things. Like pie. Like Hallowe’en. Like my favourite risotto. Her heels clasp the bar, forming a makeshift desk with her hearty knees. She hunches, allowing her short dark hair to tunnel her vision through her simple glasses and onto her latest piece. Her round fingers grip a skinny biro whose sticky blue nose is buried in her scrapbook. She circles, stripes and speckles with that pen, so engrossed is Emily that she has no idea I have shunned the gallery of works around me. She’s dressed in security togs. White shirt. Navy blazer. Sensible shoes. She’s supposed to be watching me! The reason I watch her for this twenty second show, is because I realise Emily is the art. She’s animated. Real. It’s when I lay this over my life, that I realise Emily is why I travel. To see and meet my life’s artists, and to frame them how I choose. Continue reading ‘The Incidental Artist’
