Storytelling + music

Shhh. Listen carefully while the forest sleeps. The wolf, in his greed, has swallowed the duck alive. You can still hear it quacking inside the wolf's belly. When I was little, the only music I knew was classical music, with the odd folk intrusion. My mother was a flautist and spent seven years studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (affectionately known as The Con). My father played the violin in the Sydney Youth Orchestra, but the dog would howl when he played for us in the kitchen.

My school attendance record was impeccable, in part because a sick day meant a day listening to "yucky music" (read: operas) on the radio. When I was in Year 5, I asked my parents what was this "rock 'n roll" and "pop" music that the kids at school were listening to. They put on a record of Godspell. Godspell!

But one great gift my parents' fixation on classical music gave me was an appreciation of the power of music for storytelling and imagination. When I was a child, entering the world of music was as wonderful an adventure as entering the world of a really good book. I loved both.

It started with Peter and the Wolf. Have you ever heard it? Was this in your childhood? The music echoes the adventures of Peter as he rescues a duck from the family cat, only to watch it captured (and gobbled up) by the wolf.

Inspired by this haunting, disturbing and beautiful piece of musical storytelling, my father would create fairy tales from every piece of "yucky" music on the radio.

"Listen, the giants are coming! Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!" he'd cry, as the double bass, drums and horns thundered. Oboes would signal the ruling of the wizard. Later, the piccolo and viola would quiver across the airwaves. "Can you hear it? The fairies are dancing!" my father say, then he'd grin and shake my arm. Dad could make a magical world of words out of anything musical.

Now, I spend my days trying to make music out of words. That's the power of imagination, I guess.

Ain't it hard to be humble

In honour of my grandfather Kevin, whose birthday it would have been today. This Mac Davis ditty was, like, grandpa's theme song. Boy would he sing it with gusto! I miss him.

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way. I can't wait to look in the mirror cause I get better loking each day. To know me is to love me I must be a hell of a man. Oh Lord it's hard to be humble but I'm doing the best that I can.

I used to have a girlfriend but she just couldn't compete with all of these love starved women who keep clamoring at my feet. Well I prob'ly could find me another but I guess they're all in awe of me. Who cares, I never get lonesome cause I treasure my own company.

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way, I can't wait to look in the mirror cause I get better looking each day To know me is to love me I must be a hell of a man. Oh Lord it's hard to be humble but I'm doing the best that I can.

I guess you could say I'm a loner, a cowboy outlaw tough and proud. I could have lots of friends if I want to but then I wouldn't stand out from the crowd. Some folks say that I'm egotistical. Hell, I don't even know what that means. I guess it has something to do with the way that I fill out my skin tight blue jeans.

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way, I can't wait to look in the mirror cause I get better looking each day To know me is to love me I must be a hell of a man. Oh Lord it's hard to be humble but I'm doing the best that I can.

We're doing the best that we can.

Artists among us

Tribute to the street artists of Enmore and Newtown, who make ducking out to get milk an adventure in a living gallery.

Made in Iceland

I've been editing a blog lately for a girl in Iceland. She mostly writes about travel, food, and family life at home, so you can imagine how enjoyable this 'work' is for me to read. The girl has a beautiful, carefree voice in her writing and, in between the funny stories, I get glimpses of her life that go beyond superficial culture and into what I guess, for want of a better way to describe it, is her cultural heart.

This girl is so very English in many ways, but occasionally something utterly Icelandic slips through in a manner of expressing herself, or in the way she responds to certain situations. I love it.

Then last week I came across this wonderful video by Austrian photographer and cinematographer Klara Harden, who spent 25 days trekking across Iceland alone. It is glorious and beautiful and invigorating, and sometimes harsh. Watching this, I felt both her freedom and her isolation, but most of all her elation. I also wanted to dig out my old hiking boots.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/31158028 w=525&h=295]

MADE IN ICELAND from Klara Harden on Vimeo.

There is something in the lonely wilderness of this mini-documentary that smacks of the freedom and romance-meets-brutal-practicality that comes through in the blog I have been editing.

And it makes me wonder, not for the first time, just how much our physical environment influences the truth of who we are. And more: what does that mean if, like me, you are a child (or grandchild) of immigrants, and you continue shifting landscapes across countries and even across hemispheres throughout your life? Where is the land of my soul?

All photographs from Klara Harden's Facebook page, used with permission.