The low road oft listened to

Every now and then you find something beautiful and have to share it. I'm off to find a way to give Thea Gilmore some money. It's the least I can do.



Cut me down
Bury this rosary
Somewhere out of town
Somewhere out by the sea
And take this ring
Give it to Emily
Tell her I'm peaceful now
Tell her I've been released

I will be rolling on
I will be rolling on

Well I know that drill
I know it all too well
It starts like a lonely voice
And shifts to a tolling bell
Like rain on the dusty ground
Small bones in the driest well
The spark breeds a fiery tongue
And the tongues kiss the cheek of Hell

And I will be rolling on
I will be rolling on
I have had my part to play
Now I am going home

There's no telling which way, boys
This thing is going to take hold
From the fruit on a poplar tree
To the bruise round a band of gold
From the blood in a far country
To the war of just growing old
We travel a lower road
And it's lonely and it is cold

But we will be rolling on
We will be rolling on
We've had our part to play
Now we are going home

We will keep rolling on
We will keep rolling on
‘Cause for every midnight hour
There's always a rising sun

The end is nigh

Is this a sign of the apocalypse? I fear so.

I don't know what there thinking.

A new game

Power point or cyberman?

Round 1

Umm...

Having scored a bunch of free bookcases recently, I've been sorting the substantial quantities of books we own so that we stand a fighting chance of finding the one we're looking for. It has been going pretty well, and mostly there's a logical place for any given book. But some defeated me and I decided I needed a category of "books that have no category".

Results so far have been disappointing. I must ponder this a while.

Stay classy Harper Lee fans

When I heard that a prequel (of sorts) of To Kill a Mockingbird was to be published, my first thought was that it was a really bad idea. Even worse, it's reported that Harper Lee's editor at the time knocked it back for a re-write that became the classic. In my experience a professional editor's judgement is usually pretty good. It's the same reasoning that makes me avoid 'director's cut' packaging of films; artists aren't usually dispassionate judges of their own work.

I note that Jessa Crispin writing in the NY Times had the same view. (She also thinks the Harry Potter books are dreadful, so gold star for Jessa.) But ultimately it doesn't matter. There's an Anchorman 2 out there somewhere, but I've managed to never see it, read reviews of it or even seriously acknowledge its existance. For me the legend of Ron Burgundy is untarnished. Have some jazz flute (with a nod to Jethro Tull for good measure):




Yeah, I just compared To Kill a Mockingbird to Anchorman.

The clever country?

I was driving in rural Victoria last weekend and saw this sign between Ararat and Maryborough:

I'm willing to bet they don't.

Meta-selfies?

My wife and I were walking through a stunning piece of native karri forest south of Margaret River in WA last month. There was a short walking track ending in a bit of a lookout. There were several people on the lookout, and as I got close I heard "Hey, take a picture of me taking a selfie".

True story. I would have taken a picture of the scene to document it, but the irony meter on my camera would've redlined.