Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Earthrise Diary (Dec 2012)


THE EARTHRISE DIARY (Dec 2012)
© text Don Diespecker 2012
Don Diespecker

Before sunrise the sky was grey with low cloud that looked like smoke in the early light, but now that the sun is up and I’m standing in the lounge room looking downstream I see the surface of the Bellinger glimmering with flashing sunlight. Away to my left the lawns are lighting in patches. At eye level I can now see several fine strands of silk between the riverside casuarinas: the light flashes along each length like a laser. These are only snares or hunting strands intended for some tiny flying creatures over the water. I wonder if the little spinners in the trees know how beautifully they have contrived this flashing display; their suspended strands are only microns in diameter: I see them clearly from 40-m away.

DD Dec 15 2012

Dec 9 2012. –Already this is the second week of December and the month is well under way and speedily taking us all to the conclusion of year 2012! I see that the eucalypts have begun splitting and shedding their barks. If I sit quietly and watch and might see some of that happening, live. This being Sunday I’ve allowed myself an entire hour to sit outside and to creatively write an outline description of one of my long stories so as to have something prepared for online self publishing in the next few days.
The past two weeks or so have been a busy time for me and one of my greatest difficulties is the Earthrise Connection to The Weather. To explain that: there have been frequent thunderstorms with sometimes heavy thundery showers here. This weather pattern has persisted through the last part of the spring and into the summer; consequently parts of the property are like a jungle. Also, there have been planned electricity interruptions (necessary for infrastructure improvements), as well as power failures due to noisy electrical storms (candlelight is useless when I have work to do on the computer or reading that always seems essential—reading implies the best of light) and there have been essential outside jobs (clearing debris; mowing when the weather allows). The lawns being so much in the shade have been more wet than dry and the grass is close to impossible to properly mow if it’s always wet—and growing apace.
At lunchtime I sit on the belvedere to make notes and to pass the time sensibly with a water dragon in need of sustenance (juicy stinging flies) after having left some food scraps in the compost area for Jason, the inimitable brush turkey (Jason is getting close to accepting hand-feeding, like certain dragons). Sunny warm days are not quite as frequent as I would like: thunderstorms and heavy showers are more usual this year—not a good sign because it implies another wet summer of flooding rains, a full river carrying big loads of debris and large portions of that being dumped here.
I had rolled up the TV Guide with which to swat flies that attacked me relentlessly. I saw two juicy stingers valiantly parked on the toe of my work boot where they were so determined that I assumed they were surely gaining nourishment of some kind from the battered leather. I rolled the Guide tighter and attempted the mutual assassination of the flies but failed, apologised to the dragon for my poor marksmanship and then noticed an item in the TV Guide and read that Marina Abramovic, had presented herself as an exposition in New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2010 (“The Artist is Present”). She did this by having sat in a chair from morning till night every day for three months, “allowing members of the public to sit in front of her for as long as they liked.”
This seems an attractive notion because a variation of this work could become a fashionable possibility here at Earthrise. I could charge visitors a reasonable admission price to my belvedere on days when the weather is fine and when I fancy an hour or so sitting diligently for the viewers who would be happy to see me reading, making notes and possibly even having conversations with the water dragons—so long as the visitors would guarantee to not block either my downstream view of the rapids or the slightly upstream experience of seeing and hearing the rapids running into the Pool. I would even allow at no extra cost, photos to be taken of myself appropriately reading, writing and from time to time mugging genteelly for the camera. And why would I not? I suppose that if this exhibition or more correctly exposition were to become the vogue up here in the Darkwood there would be a certain amount of competition between the locals as ‘performance artists’ or ‘living rustic treasures’ and some might risk spoiling the show by encouraging the customers to buy Devonshire Teas, on the one hand, or to request certain beverages like very dry Martinis or chilled chardonnay or even beer in cans. When I think more deeply about this I still felt encouraged because with enough paying customers I might then be able to invest in a laptop and do even more work while sitting benignly on the belvedere during these summery days while writing a book or two out there. I might have to draw the line at too large a crowd of viewers though because they would tend to obscure my best views (I quickly visualise a solution: I would restrict the location of viewers to seats below and on the river side of the belvedere so that only their heads would be visible over the edge of my lookout).
These playful possibilities remind me of my teenage years in South Africa: in Durban I would sometimes visit a Tearoom Bioscope called, I think, the Roxy. South Africans have long tended to speak of the cinema as The Bioscope or ‘the Bio.’ Puzzled readers will find plenty of information about these names and phenomenon by Googling the words. The Tearoom Bio is a cinema in which the price of admission includes refreshments. The one that I remember in the early 1940s had a continuous (I think) ‘table’ like a rack that was built on to the backs of the seats so that after an usherette had asked the customer for his/her preference for refreshment, she would return with ice cream on a saucer or a sweet drink and place the item in front of her customer.
I realise that although I could arrange something similar here (and remembering that the Roxy usherettes were uniformed and wore pillar box hats) I would have to employ kitchen staff in my kitchen and outside staff to deliver refreshments from the house to the belvedere. Problems might arise: some of the staff might resist being uniformed; others might insist upon it. It still seems a feasible idea, however, and so long as customers avoid making a mess or tipping over backwards in to the river I’m sure the scheme would work well enough. Think of it! My visitors would pay me an admission price, be seated at footlight level, be delivered refreshments and have the pleasure of watching me intently for hours as I creatively whiled away the time on summery afternoons! I’d probably earn enough money to retire all over again.

Some readers may be interested to know that I have begun self-publishing some of my many unpublished MSS hitherto stored in a computer (and there are also some printed text copies in cardboard boxes). More eBooks are now being published Online than regular text editions offered for sale by regular publishes. –Not because of me, I hasten to add, but because there is now a worldwide trend or ‘fashion,’ if you like, to do so. I won’t say more about this because readers may find abundant information about this and other DIY method of self-publishing at a number of Online sites. The one I have been exploring and using (self-publishing is free, by the way) is called Kindle Direct Publishing. –That, in turn, implies a Kindle reader or something similar: iPhone, iPad or iPod. Ebooks can be selected and paid for with a credit card Online.  So far and with assistance from friends and mentors I’ve been able to self publish in November and December, these:
Finding Drina,” a novella in three parts and in three distinct styles (those approximating the styles of GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell). In my narrative my characters meet the characters from other novels (this makes my novella, also, metafiction—fiction about fiction). Each part of the story, as a homage piece, is also a tribute to a particular novelist. The narrative is set in Venezuela, Australia, Paris and Rhodes and includes some so-called magic (or magical) realism.
The Earthrise Visits” is one of my long (20-k words) stories and is set here (it’s a literary ghost story and includes magic realism).
Farewelling Luis Silva” is another of my long stories; it unfolds partly in Canberra, Paris and Brussels and mostly in Lisbon. This is a dystopian story set about a decade into the future.
About two years ago I wrote a long story titled, “One morning in May.” Bruce Furner and I had been discussing our mutual admiration and fondness for that fine soprano, Miliza Korjus. I was a 9-year old kid in Pilgrims Rest (E Transvaal, South Africa) in 1938 when the movie, The Great Waltz was released and a copy duly arrived in our small (gold) mining village. Many will recall that one of the songs featured in that film was “One day when we were young,” (one wonderful morning in May, &c &c). Miliza Korjus, (aka ‘The Berlin Nightingale’) starred in that movie and sang the song. I can never forget her: in appearance MK was strikingly similarity to Mae West.
I had recently heard the song, was able to again see some of the images Online and also hear some of MKs singing. Adapting the title of that song was a nostalgic way of titling a story that had no real similarities to the 1938 movie, The Great Waltz. Long stories in this country never achieve publication in Australia—unless the writer is famous—and this narrative is nearly 23-k words long. The story depends partly on the notion of coincidence for it to work in the way that I wanted. There are several of these partly synchronous episodes in the story and there’s also one that startled me because I hadn’t planned or contrived it.
On Dec 9, I was doing a final check on the draft of this retitled long story. There is a brief mention in a short scene that takes place in an oyster bar in Lisbon where Sarah Hart and Harvey Giraud are having a light lunch: I had written into this scene that Harvey was preoccupied but that Sarah had distinguished from among the many sounds they could both hear, that particular music (above) from the movie, The Great Waltz (but not any particular voice like that of Miliza Korjus). I was re-reading the particular paragraph when I suddenly heard on my radio here at Earthrise a chorus of voices singing “One day when we were young.” It’s not a piece of music we might normally expect to hear at all frequently these days, but there was no particular reason that I was aware of for it to have been broadcast on that particular day and at that particular time. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I had shivers along my spine. It was an eerie experience.
Each of the above three eBooks are listed ($0.99) and the first two have their own covers (rather than one ‘provided’ by KDP). Though it’s possible to navigate from the Kindle Direct Publishing site there is a more direct way. I asked Kerry Smith and he recommends this: Go to amazon.com then select Kindle eBooks and then do a search for Don Diespecker and the above books will be seen listed. Or, more quickly: do a search on Amazon, kindle, eBooks, Don Diespecker.  
I’ve also been preparing and editing a quite long novel, “The Selati Line” and will self-publish this soon, too (this is a sequel to my novels The Agreement and Lourenço Marques, is also a post Boer War story, a train story and also an early flying story. The protagonists Alexandrina (‘Drina’) de Camoens, Louis Dorman, the prodigy/savant, Louise Dorman and a number of other familiar characters reappear in this full length novel (about 120-k words). Because it’s much bigger than the other three stories this eBook will probably be priced a little higher than the first three, but I haven’t yet made that decision.

Don’s Day Out (3 and 4)

                                                                                                                        DD
It’s December 11 and I’m up at dawn for an early start. Not only does the old 1987 Honda require a big Service (she’s doing very well at 190,000-km but she does require increasing attention). There has been increased concern because I recently discovered that the battery tray had become so corroded as to threaten the battery (this is a polite way of indicating that I suddenly was rushing pell-mell toward terminal neurosis because I feared the battery might fiendishly break loose from its once secure platform and fall through the corroded metal and on to the road (there would be blinding flashes and possibly large detonations and almost certainly a horrendous onboard fire developing into a mushroom cloud that would be seen from space by umpteen Intel satellites and which would alert Global Security Countermeasures as the crippled vehicle, now enveloped in flames, plunged from the highway into one of the coastal forests, destroying every forest in sight as well as Yours Truly). Fortunately for myself and for the ageing Honda, none of these terrifying events occurred.
A few days prior to the 11th I had wandered over to the Coffs Harbour CBD and the Palm Centre (I am now able to walk more or less normally thanks to the wonderful effects of silica tablets and the presumed reducing of the ‘spurs’ on my spine). I expected the Muffin Break café to have remained upstairs at the Centre where there is ample light and psychologically an airy feeling (and where there are appropriate distant views through the many windows up on that level), but the café has reverted to its downstairs location where, psychologically, there is gloom that approaches semi darkness, no windows, and the kinds of hoardings and temporary structures to be found in buildings undergoing renovations and reconstructions. Worst of all, there were unsettling reflections of criminal-looking and dangerous persons to be seen whenever I glanced at the dark shop- fronts in this area—until I realized that I was seeing only the pallid reflections of myself and other early morning beverage drinkers and that the most threatening of all images, strangely enough, was my own.
On Dec 11 there is a little more light and being a creature of habit I buy as a treat some black espresso coffee and a gluten-free blueberry muffin and wander away from the busy counter to a seat and tiny table nearby; I can see most of my fellow drinkers and they can see me. I adopt my casual Old Bloke on Day Out Publicly Drinking Coffee posture and look craftily about whilst peering through the fumes. The coffee is good—somewhat better than the rare brews that I make in an old coffee pot at home and the far more sophisticated drink that Kerry S makes with a dangerous-looking little espresso machine. I imagine my blood pressure going up rapidly and although I would prefer that my surging blood would relax a little I do enjoy the caffeine blast.
It is summer and crowds begin subtly to form before 08:00 hours. The temperature and humidity rise. The early morning crowd is moving at Coffs Harbour speeds which is to say that the people are all moving much faster than the average person either in the Darkwood (where most folks travel fast in motor vehicles if they can, rather than totter along the dangerous Darkwood Road with it’s loose stones and depths of dust, or in Bellingen where the pace is faster than Darkwood but slower than it is in the Coffs CBD. Again, that kind of walking speed is a notable psychological factor. If a Bellingen walker (some go barefoot) were to move at Bellingen speed in the Coffs CBD he or she would attract attention, if not suspicion, and that person moving at that ‘country’ pace could possibly become a Security Risk. In Coffs CBD one must learn to move at the appropriate pace (close to running before 08:00 hours).
There I am sipping coffee and keeping the locals under surveillance. Opposite me there is a brightly lighted chicken butchery; I am reminded of waiting for a kibbutz bus in Upper Galilee where I passed the time idly watching an open-air chicken butchery in action (live chooks at one end were dispatched somewhere along the conveyor line and chooks minus their heads arrived at the other end). That, in turn reminded me of a similar enterprise at the so-called ‘slaughter pole’ in Pilgrims Rest when I, all of eight years old learned where our table meat came from (I can see it all now and will spare you the details).
I am surrounded by the unforgettable and unstoppable sounds of Bing Crosby with orchestra and chorus singing ‘White Christmas.’ This music is suddenly and loudly contested by a quite different kind of music from a store nearby; the resultant noise is unbearable. Perhaps there are local psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors who have set this up so as to attract hitherto innocent and now unhinged coffee drinkers?
This part of the Centre looks very unfinished; I suppose that’s a consequence of builders building while trying to avoid being watched by coffee drinkers. The ceilings above the Muffin Break café look very unfinished. A crime thriller I saw recently on TV indicated that refurbished ceilings were opportune places in which to conceal murder victims. I wonder if there are any murder victims that have been concealed above my head here now? I also wonder if the Bing Crosby music fans and the more modern and clashing competitors would be driven to murdering each other? Is that why the ceilings look so unfinished directly over my head?
I finish my coffee and saunter off toward the escalator. Upstairs where it is more open and well lighted there is a Christmas tree with flashing lights and the top of the tree has a nice big star attached to it. Naturally I remember such trees and stars on the Christmas trees of my childhood, especially those in British Columbia. I remember that in one year in the 1930s our tree was so tall that deft and discreet surgery was needed to fit the star at the apex—it otherwise would have been affixed at a horizontal angle.
I wander over to the tree and then make a discreet inspection of several attractive wooden seats placed along the wall beneath the windows with the expansive views. Nobody sits on these grand benches that look like park benches, highly varnished. I wonder why. I discover that there are shining metal labels on each of the benches that reads: “Big W Courtesy Seat. We sell For Less.” I don’t think that Big W intends the sale of those benches. Another reason for their being empty may be that the benches are on the raised level where Muffin Break had once been temporarily located because of reconstruction and building on the ground floor. Anyone sitting up there would be able to look down on the rest of the crowd.
I sit on the now battered sofa I have sat on in the past. One book reader has just left; I take his place and browse my book of essays. Opposite young women assistants pace and chat moodily, each with an eye for parents with children to be photographed; business is slow; there is no photography because there are no indulgent parents while I read my book.
After a while I go into the Big W and browse their books section. I am at pains to show the Security lady at the entrance my bag of books, medical items, iPhone, notebooks, diary and my swish new external hard drive for the computer. When I come out again I again show my bag to the Security person and we chat. Sometimes an alarm goes off when a neglecting customer has failed to pay for a purchase. I learn alarming things about some of the customers.
Later, and following this casual little interview and chat about Security matters, I walk down the street to the Book Warehouse. On the way a car’s security system loudly begins to sound a warning. I turn to see why, but am none the wiser. Suddenly a young woman ahead of me rushes into the street aiming a hand-held device. I consider diving into the gutter there to take cover but realise that the device is not a firearm but an electronic instrument intended to switch off her car alarm…
Life in the city has undertones and sometimes overtones of danger. I later drive home in the rejuvenated Honda.

Dec 17. The year is moving on at breakneck speed. I am up early for the weekly Practice Run combined with Shopping to Coffs Harbour and Park Beach Plaza. The Honda moves delightfully along the highway as smoothly as Starship Enterprise. It is a fine summer day and humid. I note that Jason, the splendid brush turkey has used the Honda’s roof as a perch and left a mess for me to clean up. I pray that he hasn’t discovered how to get in to the dahlia garden and dig up all the tubers. I mention these matters to the bird when I return home mid morning. Jason is busy turning over everything loose on the slopes between the carport and the house; yet again. Brush turkeys are hard to reason with. I am pleased to see that there is at least one Christmas orchid on this path that has survived Jason’s predations and that it is flowering beautifully. Massed choirs of cicada percussionists greet my return. I can see clouds forming and there will surely be thunder soon. It’s almost Christmas again.
Dec 18. There was yet another electrical storm yesterday afternoon followed by heavy showers—by which time I had switched off and disconnected the computer and disconnected the phones. Just as well. The power failed at 4:30 pm. When the rain stopped I went out to check my incoming power line: it was secure and undamaged. Good. I found Jason brush turkey in the carport; he doesn’t much care for electrical storms and heavy rain. ‘Jason,’ I said severely, loafing about in the carport makes you a target for foxes; you need to roost—but not on the roof of the Honda.’ Jason cocks his head and stares enquiringly. ‘What’s more,’ I earnestly say, ‘I’ve heard all the fox stories and some can reputedly run up chicken wire, go over the top, terminate all the chooks down below and then escape by running up the chicken wire again. You might bear that in mind.’ Jason seems to toss his head before wandering away.’ I leave him to it and return to the house.
The electricity came on again after 90 minutes. Hours later I happened to look outside in the dark; the dark was nicely lighted by fireflies flashing on the slopes next to the house. In the past the fireflies always were seen only in the spring, usually in September. Here they were on a warm humid evening in early summer. Climate change and global warming, I suppose. –And of course Jason’s rearranging of the landscape.
I’m closing and posting the Diary early (there are hours of editing the Selati novel ahead). This has been a momentous year for me—the 1,000th month, my citizenship, and now self-publishing Online.
Please see, also, Russell Atkinson’s blog at: 

www.theoldestako.wordpress.com/

Best wishes to all Diary Readers, from Don at Earthrise. December 18 2012.
  




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