A friendship of so many years... since 1962, almost 60 years.
Plenty of water under the bridge.
Nigel at home with his minder, Jedda
photo by Ivan Gaal
Over the years we helped each other to create some films, well, occasionally.
When I was just starting out as a filmmaker Nigel was starting to shoot “Fun Radio” which was a real buzz for me.
I was lucky to ride with Nigel in his fancy sports car when he filmed a few shots and I even got to hold his new Bolex camera for a tracking shot or two as he was driving.
We've shared staff-room days at Swinburne, snooker at the Red Triangle, and most recently as editor Nigel helped me create my film tribute to our friend Paul Cox:
“The Nude in the Window”
Without Nigel’s gracious assistance that film would never have been completed.
Nigel has assisted many other filmmakers in his life’s journey. The list is far too long, I will not attempt to list them all as I will most probably overlook too many.
As Nigel is about to celebrate his birthday this is my way of wishing him a very happy birthday.
A few years ago we discovered that we both admired the blues music of Big Bill Broonzy. I had seen a short film about Big Bill when I worked at the State Film Centre in the early 60’s, about the same time Nigel and I met.
A couple of years ago Nigel introduced me to a compilation of Big Bill Broonzy numbers supported by Graeme Bell’s Australian Jazz Band:
A concert in Dusseldorf, Germany, 1947. Two years after the end of WW2, Big Bill Broonzy backed by Graeme Bell, piano, and his Australian Jazz Band: Ade Monsborough, sax, Pixie Roberts, clarinet. The concert at which this track was recorded was part of a European tour, bringing together a nexus of Delta Blues and Australian Jazz.
We selected one piece from that recording from which I went on to create this tribute to Big Bill for Nigel:
In a few days Maggie Grout and Miriam Huerta of Thinking Huts will be pitching at Yale.
I've written about Maggie in two previous blogs where I mentioned her age as 15 years. I realise that she was 15 when she started out, but now she's 21. However this coming event is a big step foward for Maggie and Miriam. In a virtual presentation which will be hosted via "Eventbrite" Maggie and Miriam will be making their case for their Madagascar project as it was described in The Smithsonian Magazine. Their project is one of only four finalists to make the list for the Thorne Prize for social innovation!
Another item I discovered via AEON which is also available on YouTube, detailing the amazing relationship between trees assisted by underground networks of fungi calledmycorrhizae.
The incredible – and still quite mysterious – way trees trade information via their roots.
While researching her doctoral thesis, Suzanne Simard, now a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, made an astounding discovery – trees in forests seem to possess complex information superhighways in their root systems that allow them to share information. Her 1995 doctoral thesis on the topic has been part of a revolution in how scientists view plants, leading many to suggest that they possess cognitive abilities, and even intelligence. This animation from TED-Ed details the symbiotic relationship – between tree roots and fungi called mycorrhizae – that serves as the foundation of these intricate intra-tree communication networks, allowing them to trade news on topics such as drought and insect attacks, and even detect if an incoming message has been sent by a close relative.
Also, my late friend Colin Maxwell Talbot used the word "amaranth"as a chapter heading for his book "Massive Road Trauma", a work I love deeply.
Now, an image to go with the word:
I really didn't know much about this "weed" even though I was fascinated by its name.
Lately I checked it out on Wiki and found a lot about it.
Then the other day an article in "The Smithsonian Magazine" brought it to my attention once more.
Around the World in Eight Plants
And one of the plants it featured was my amaranth. Here's what they wrote about it:
"Amaranth falls into the category of forgotten grains, since it’s often overshadowed by more readily available whole grains like oats and rye. However, it has gained popularity in recent years thanks to being highly nutritious and a good source of amino acids. In fact, prior to the Spanish Conquest in 1519, amaranth was a staple foodstuff of the Inca and Aztec empires. The Aztecs used the seeds of the scruffy garnet plant for ceremonial purposes, mixing amaranth flour with agave syrup and molding the mixture into figures representing important deities within their culture, such as Tlaloc, the god of rain. Upon seeing this, Spanish conquistadors banned the crop, believing “the practice to be the work of the devil,” Drori says. In modern-day Peru, a popular street snack called turrones is made by popping the seeds—similar to popcorn—and mixing it with agave syrup or molasses in a nod to the Aztecs."
The article in The Smithsonian was really just an ad for a new book by Jonathan Drori and I'm happy to give it this plug, just because it includes my amaranth!
Jonathan Drori takes a trip across the globe, bringing to life the science of plants by revealing how their worlds are intricately entwined with our own history, culture and folklore. From the seemingly familiar tomato and dandelion to the eerie mandrake and Spanish "moss" of Louisiana, each of these stories is full of surprises.
So I learn new things every day. I don't find it "scruffy" at all, I rather like it.
There are also many varieties found in different countries.
The reason I ask this question because we are immersed in so much doom and gloom at this time.
I could have asked: “Do you fear for the future?”
Or I could have asked: “Are you optimistic about the future of human life on earth?”
Another way I could work it is this: “Will the future be better than the present or will it be worse?”
There are so many ways of tackling this broad subject area which I often discuss with my friends. I’m always surprised by the different ways each of my friends responds to the general subject area of “the future”, and the different levels of their concerns.
Like me, they have quite different views on all questions relating to the future and their views are generally so fearful, as are mine, but what strikes me most is that we all look at the subject in a GENERALISED WAY. Sometimes we break this huge subject area down into smaller components such as the fear of runaway climate disaster, worsening global Covid 19 epidemic, fear of war between USA and China engulfing the world, which is just another variant of World War III.
But all of these are “generalised” areas of concern. Another way to consider the future is by viewing it absolutely from our “personal perspective” and by making our personal concerns for the future paramount over all others. In other words:
“What do I fear most about my future prospects?”
I’ve recently had many discussions with Richard Leigh about how AI and the coming “singularity” which can be viewed either as bringing either boundless benefits or great harm. Just like reaching the “tipping point” in climate change, “the singularity “ is a sort of tipping point in human evolution where the mass of humanity is managed by Artificial Intelligence on a global scale. As if we are not currently being managed by a consortium of global enterprises such as the international manufactures of armaments, the sellers of information services, and the general marketers of unnecessary products such as cars, TVs, mobiles and white goods all heading for the the tip.
When I was a teenager and just getting a grip on music of various sorts including pop, classical and folk music, I picked up a lot of songs from the Pete Seeger Song Book. I also heard Pete Seeger sing at the Melbourne Town Hall when I was about 20 years of age. In his one man concert he performed many of his famous songs including “Little Boxes”:
He also sang “Take This Hammer” lots of other songs including “Wimoweh”,
“In the jungle the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight”
which has been deeply analysed and criticised for its various inaccuracies, lack of political correctness and its underlying colonial bias.
But one of the songs which stunned me most that evening was “The Bells Of Rhymney” which Pete Seeger had set to the poem by Idris Davies:
The Bells of Rhymney
words Idris Davies, music Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger sang Idris Davies' poem The Bells of Rhymney, set to his own music, at a Ballads and Blues concert at St. Pancras Town Hall Theatre on 4 October 1959 that was released by Folklore Records in 1963 on the album Pete Seeger in Concert.
Lyrics
Oh, what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Is there hope for the future?
Cry the brown bells of Merthyr.
Who made the mine owner?
Say the black bells of Rhondda.
And who robbed the miner?
Cry the grim bells of Blaina.
They will plunder willy-nilly,
Say the bells of Caerphilly.
They have fangs, they have teeth,
Shout the loud bells of Neath.
Even God is uneasy,
Say the moist bells of Swansea.
Oh, what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Throw the vandals in court,
Cry the bells of Newport.
All would be well if, if, if,
Say the green bells of Cardiff.
Why so worried, sisters, why?
Sing the silver bells of Wye.
Oh, what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney?
Nearly 60 years later the phrase which woke me out of my slumber this morning is
“IS THERE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE?”
You can see the song is specifically localised to Wales and Weslh miners and yet it is also global. It speaks of the relationship between miners, workers or entire communities dominated by “mining interests”, moguls or corporations and yet it also speaks to people from all around the world, in different countries, in different cultures and in different economies, all suffering under the tyranny of business interests which rule their lives, damage their health, exploit them and leave them exhausted and poisoned when the mine runs out.
If the song had not spoken globally as well as locally, it would not have been taken up and become as famous as it did in the sixties.
Just as Little Boxes by Malvina Retnolds which was also introduced to me by Peter Seeger did not just speak of “little boxes”
“all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same”
did not speak just for parts of the US, England or Australia, it spoke aptly for what was happening in suburbia all around the world and is still going on even here in my cherished Kyneton today. They are building suburban sprawl in my little town of Kyneton with a new housing complex rising all around where I built this house 10 years ago! One of the reasons I bought this land and built this house is that I thought I would escape suburban sprawl, but I was wrong. I am part of it. It is inescapable! It goes with population growth heading towards 8 BILLION people despite the ravages of Covid 19 which has only taken about 3 MILLION lives so far.
Current World Population
7.9 Billion
If you would like to view the individual numbers ticking over go here:
Of course we cannot yet know what the outcome of Covid 19 will be as it is now exploding like wildfire in some countries such as India and Brazil with huge populations at risk and with the health services already being overwhelmed in those countries. This week, 250,000 new cases reported in India in successive days! That would mean ONE MILLION new cases in four days!
“Is there hope for the future?”
When WW1 came to an end, people may have had hope for peace and quiet and along came the Spanish Flu. It was totally unexpected and what would those survivors have made of that? At the end of WW2, after all that devastation which was so widespread, surely some peace and quiet? No, we cannot do without warfare it seems, so we had Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, the genocide of Pol Pot in Cambodia, the Balkans, etc., etc. all of which were interspersed with famines in Africa, hurricanes or tornados in other places, earthquakes and tsunamis, and nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl and Fukushima.
So it’s no wonder we all feel “without hope” or “deeply fearful” of the future.
Are there any reasons for us to be optimistic?
Then there’s our own personal fears for our own futures.
We all face the the fear of growing old, getting sick, dying. We all fear losing our jobs, or our businesses. Covid 19 has given many nations the taste of widespread business failure, and even countries such as Australia or New Zealand which have not suffered as many cases of illness or death as in Europe, have experienced extensive economic damage. In our country thousands of small businesses have gone to the wall. Larger ones also. Hundreds of thousands who had good jobs are now without a job and in fear of what comes next.
How could these people, whether they are business owners, operators or workers, be optimistic? From all the news sources I keep up with I see they are clearly shattered. And it’s not just from Covid 19… there have been many communities wiped out by devastating fires, floods and hurricane activity.
So there are plenty of reasons to be “fearful” of the future when the present is not so good. It's hard to have hope for the future when all around us there are stories of doom and gloom, which our news outlets will not let us forget even for a day!
And then there’s the torn social fabric! The epidemic of drugs and gambling which has ripped our social fabric, torn it to shreds, so that muggings, home breakins and murder have become commonplace.
Please forgive me for not feeling optimistic.
Finally there are the deepest personal fears. Our fears of growing old and dying, not only a quiet or peaceful departure but much worse, dying in a “home” for the aged, sourced by our Federal Government which has proven beyond any doubt that it simply cannot do the job at all. It gives billions of taxpayer dollars to companies or religious entities which are supposed to look after the aged with care and dignity, only to see them mistreated, abused, not properly fed or looked after in regards to their basic health care.
So, as I’m now 78 years old I’m scared shitless! Please forgive my indecent language. Most regrettable!
But when I speak with others, my younger friends, Richard and Bill, many others, I see they are just as worried as I am. They are not only worried for themselves, their wives and their children, but also in some cases for their parents. My brother and my sisters and I already experienced how well our parents fared in aged care, fortunately we saw that they were very well looked after, they were not abused. But nowadays there are no guarantees. So that is why on a deeply personal level I fear for my own future, and also for the future of all my close friends and relatives.
I can’t worry about the poor bastards in Czechoslovakia or Hungary who are dying at a much faster rate than people in France, Italy or Poland. I can’t worry about how many Americans are getting the vaccine or how many are not getting it, nor how many are fearful because of all the misinformation which is being pedalled by the conspiracy theorists and the biggest twit of all who is currently off-stage. I can’t be concerned for all the sick and the dying in Brazil because they have an idiot for a president who thinks Covid is just a common cold, despite the fact that his country is in the grip of a pandemic with massive numbers catching the virus, and a huge death rate resulting from this “common cold”.
At the outset of the epidemic which has turned into a pandemic and is not yet over, I knew that it would one day get out of control in some countries like India. And now it is spreading like wildfire. In India a quarter of a million new cases every day recently.
+260,778 yesterday
+275,306 today
You don’t have to be a mathematics genius to be able to see that will add to more than a million in two days time! And you don’t have to be a genius of any description to imagine that it is only beginning. This wildfire is just taking hold, it is not being controlled. It may reach a stage when it cannot be controlled: “the tipping point”! Or it may already have reached the “tipping point”!
I have certainly reached my “tipping point”.
Over and out.
pt
ps., Friday 23rd April 6.15 am.
In the past four days since I wrote this piece, India has posted ONE MILLION new cases of Covid.
This is already a catastrophe. Who can predict where it will go from here?
The difference between India and some European nations who are doing it tough is that hospitals and ICU's in India were already at breaking point some time ago.
It's too scary to imagine what will happen in India in the near future.
Naomi Strong sends us this article she researched and produced which was recently published in Dive-Log Australasia Magazine. (#387)
Naomi gave us many fine underwater images during the time I was on Facebook. I thank Heather Bertrand for introducing me to the world of the Underwater Photographers Group where I first came across Naomi's images and also those of Matt Testoni, Sam Glenn-Smith and many other fine photographers.
I used to think they were a variety of spicy beans favoured by Mexicanos to keep them regular. Make 'em run, so to speak, or even jump!
Then I thought: "Where in the world did this crazy name come from?"
But like a lot of other things which do not seem to be worthy of deep research, I just let it go.
Then after 78 years of life on this planet Aeon came to the rescue and sent me a short film which is available on Youtube for all to see and it explains a whole lot of interesting things, the first of which is that the Mexican Jumping Bean is not even a bean! Nothing like a bean. In fact it's just a seed.
Another thing this short film explains is that these seeds do not jump of their own accord, they only jump because they have been invaded by moth larvae. And it seems that these particular seeds are sought after by a particular moth larva as a surrogate womb. Well, let's be more precise here: a sort of cocoon or pupa, but it is not one which the moth larva creates, it just invades the seed, eats it out, and then decks it out to be its temporary home.
So here's the link you've all been waiting for:
For me this tiny litle larva which selects a particular seed to inhabit for a short term, which first hollows out the seed before lining it with silk to make it more comfy, and then has found a way to bounce its new home from hot areas to cooler ones, and also takes the precaution to carve a little escape hatch for its emergence as a moth... it makes me ask this silly question:
"How the hell did it work out how to do all this?
Now, like many people you may answer, "It was created that way!"
But I don't buy that easy answer to all the big questions.
You may also say: "It just evolved that way!"
But that seems to me to be an easy cop-out which skips over many sub-questions, such as how did it come to have a symbiotic relationship with just this particular seed? And also, how did it work out that it would be sensible to line the interior with silk for a more comfortable stay?
And then there's another little question: how does it know in advance that it should prepare an escape hatch for when it emerges as a moth, because when it becomes a moth it will have no mandible? That is something which totally amazes me!
Now if any of you can answer any of these little questions for me I will be mighty obliged.
In May 2014 when Geoff Gardner was just starting Film Alert 101 he posted this article about the work of Patricia Highsmith. Here's the first paragraph of that Blog:
Wednesday, 12 November 2014
Highsmith's Final Stages
Back in the year 2000, when the remake of The Talented Mr Ripley (Anthony Minghella, UK, 2000) came out, I wrote a piece for Senses of Cinema (here) which began: In 1976 I met Patricia Highsmith at her house in Moret, a tiny village near Fontainebleau. The encounter did not last very long, perhaps three quarters of an hour, and did not lead to any enduring correspondence. Highsmith’s distraction at the presence of this Australian enthusiast was not allowed to last. I missed the local train back, walked all the way to Fontainebleau and allowed a couple of things to stick in the memory which I will refer to later. Let me start at the beginning.
I'm not going to copy the whole piece here, you can easily access it via this link:
I must confess that I have not read any of her novels and only know of her through films derived from them, e.g., "Strangers on a Train", "Full Sun" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley". Geoff's piece goes into all this and more so I really don't need to add anything about them here, except to say I loved all of these three films for different reasons.
Geoff has also sent us this link to an article he wrote for "Senses of Cinema" in May 2000:
