HIGH UP IN THE TREES

You?

{Easily detectable, we'd thought.}
 
Ever since Mette of Ungt Blod issued her invitation to reveal What Do You Do? I have been wondering the very same of those that call by here. What do you do? Or, if you like, who are you? I am curious to know.

You can of course, ignore this invitation. Or you can just wave hello, in a more flexible interpretation to my borrowed question posed. There are many that I do not share here, so I quite understand your reserve.

One of the things I do is teach painting at RMIT to students who study by correspondence. The students enrolled send in their paintings and collage works throughout the semester (in response to set projects), and in a room that overlooks the State Library, I type my replies. If I am reading Dickens, my replies can run over five pages in length.

On the shore, in a dither...

Dear you,
 
If I could be sure the craft wouldn’t leak, I’d hop in on the double and set my oars in motion. But I ain’t sure, and so I linger. On the shore, in a dither. In the distance, Conway Castle.
 
An undecided state is, in short, no pleasurable state.
 
Yours in confusion of bother and profusion of knots,
X

+ Great whoops of joy! Thanks to the Australian Ballet, last week I was a lucky winner of a double pass to the Australian National Academy of Music’s performance Final Breath. Thank-you, it was marvellous.

Canapés for possums.

{A fortunate leap.}


{In magical stillness.}

They have eaten all the new growth on the bloom red bottlebrush. And they’ve eaten all the leaves on the small lemon tree. It is now a spindle-thin green stick in a pot five times its size. They’ve eaten the trumpet flowers of the mandevilla, and all the leaves within their reach of the clematis on the fence. Though that they’ve eaten the leaves of the clematis snowflake does not matter greatly as they were soon to fall in a week or so.
 
They’ve even eaten the leaves of the hibiscus planted in the knowledge that it is not a plant they like to gnaw with abandon. Those brushtail possums of mine, each night eat happily away, upturning pots as they go.
 
Nevertheless, they do endear as they sit in the hanging bird feeder, two furred forms nibbling at the pieces of apple and orange I have left for them, the nightshift brigade, to be replenished with seed for the birds in the morning.
 
I remember reading a garden article recently about adopting a more Buddhist approach to gardening, a sort of some for them, some for me style that left everyone content, though I am not too sure my possums lean this way. Nor me. Not yet. I am torn between loving living with them and wishing I could have plants that flowered.
 
No longer do I plant oregano, lemon verbena and other fine tasting herbs unless it is to keep them indoors. Nor succulents within their reach neither, for their reach is vast and the succulents, I am guessing to a possum, too, well, too succulent to resist. For gardening, I have finally learned is a process of planting what will not tempt them. They have one giant bottlebrush, after all. It is so tall and it forms an impressive canopy. They sleep, I imagine, in a bed made of its boughs, with jasmine leaves for pillows.
 
In my small terrace garden, I plant what I hope will survive, and I do not expect to get to the olives first.
 
+ Gould’s Brushtailed possum

I had not the majestic coat of a polar...

February 11
 
Dear you,
 
Really most agreeable here in the zoological gardens of London. I had not the majestic coat of a polar but the children really didn’t seem to notice and they threw me edible sweets all the same. Of course, one must arrive early, if a good seat near to the front is to be had. Elbows that are pointy an advantage at last.
 
Performing for food,
X
 
To be posted from some unknown destination by head keeper.

+ This is the very last postcard tale from volume III of But I just got here a minute ago. I have enjoyed sharing this series with you here.

+ Le hibou wants to say hello
+ visible ink call out for submissions 2011
+ Miss Moss : Cats in Bars

Try to catch someone napping.

{With a certain sense of security, the swamp wallaby paused and took in his new surrounds.}

catch someone’s eye

catch someone napping

be caught short

catch fire

catch someone in the act

catch the light

catch up

Sometimes, I spend a tremendous amount of time thinking that I must catch up. I am not sure why this is, as I know I never will catch up to what is ahead of me. It is as likely as being able to foresee my future days. It is a silly race I ought never have started. I cannot read all the books I wish to or should, nor all the blog posts of friends both new and old. As a feat, it is not possible with my one set of eyes and singular brain. Knowing this, why cannot I just let go of such thought that I must always catch up? It is a bother and a waste. For this week, at least, or what remains of it, I will make an effort simply to enjoy doing these things when I can and leave it at that, I think.

+ The postcard collage in this late night Wednesday post features in Looking and almost never finding.

That in the moon did glitter.

{Unseen fugitives.}


{An opportunity not lost on me.}

Before I head to the museum to see the new configuration of animals on display, I thought I’d share with you a few visual details from That in the moon did glitter.

For those of you who feel the pull of the familiar, the title of this new zine of six postcard collages is drawn from a line in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (part III).

"All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter."

{That in the moon did glitter in the palm of my hand.}

+ That in the moon did glitter is one of three new zines I have made. You can pick one up here (and through Hand Held Gallery and Sticky too).

+ Libby Robbin's Dead museum animals published in reCollections (Volume 4, number 2)

(In my haste to get to those museum animals, I neglected to publish this post. It was grand, though I would have liked a few more animals; it seems I am greedy for the museums of old.)

A market for words and pictures.

{Our stall at this year's Page Parlour, Emerging Writers' Festival 2011. The day was sunny, and opposite the Forum looked the ever-enticing façade. (For how long it would last, neither knew and The stick nest rat turned her back on the rough seas are postcard collages that feature in two of three new zines made especially for Page Parlour.}

It feels a long time ago already, our stall at Page Parlour, but it was only Sunday past. Above is but a glimpse of said event organized as part of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. Our stall table laden with our paper things weighted down by a wooden pika (purchased many years ago now from After), a 2B pencil, well used and on the shorter side of long, and a washer (donated by my Dad, on his way to the football, who called in to see our stall as we were setting up). The wooden pika (though crepuscular, our mutual friend, the pika, was a tremendous help), pencil nub, and washer (third image down, can you see them there?) proved effective weights and held down our zine piles on such a windy day.  (Louise and I must remember to take with us a few more small weights of varying kind next time we have a stall. As it was, we spent the afternoon capturing fluttering zines before affixing them into place.)

I keep a steady focus...

August 12th, 1949
 
Dear you,
 
Missing you terribly. Missing you more, perhaps, than you’ll ever know. By day I keep myself busy—I admire the sights that are both grand and quiet, and I keep a steady focus, not dwelling on what might have been (no matter how delicious). The nights are harder to tame, and my slumber light.
 
Yours in crumpled sheets tied up with longing,
X

+ Death of a Scenester's Emerging Writers' Festival 2011: Page Parlour roundup
+ Thanks to everyone who popped along on Sunday to Page Parlour and waved a paw in our direction. (Photos to come. Soon.)

Looking and almost never finding.

{Looking and almost never finding. One of four new zines made especially for Page Parlour. (Also available here.)}

This Sunday, Louise and I will be taking part once more in the Emerging Writers’ Festival's annual event Page Parlour. It is the last day of the festival so come along, should you be free, and say hello. We will have four new zines to show you, as well as copies available of earlier titles, greeting cards, and small notebooks for the aspiring word play enthusiast.
 
The Emerging Writers’ Festival 2011
Page Parlour
Sunday 5th of June
12noon – 5pm
The Atrium @ Federation Square
191 Flinders Street, Melbourne

For those of you who felt the pull of the familiar, Looking and almost never finding, the title of one of my new zines is drawn from a line Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

He was sorry for the birds, especially the small delicate dark terns that were always flying and looking and almost never finding, and he thought, 'The birds have a harder life than we do except for the robber birds and the heavy strong ones. Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?
(The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway)

{Small notebooks bound by Louise.}

Cut down to size, some collaborative collages just work better that way. Cut down to a smaller size, and cut and folded and made into a small notebook. Perhaps this is something for you. Something to fling in your bag. I never like to be without pen or paper. You?

Choose between two different cover options, one with a celestial comet in the sky, and the other depicting a tiny city, replete with illuminated lovers. Together, both covers form the one scene.

These small notebooks of ours will be avialable at our stall at Page Parlour and through our online store. For those of you who can’t make it along in person or who live too far away, our new zines are also available through our store, ready to be posted to your door.

In a nutshell this evening.

+ Art in Your Home on Bloesem.
Head across to see a collection of things from our home including an artists’ book by Phil Edwards; Morran by Camilla Engman (from Uppercase’s The Suitcase Series); Magic Bottles by Thereza Rowe; a well-thumbed copy of Toadstools at Home; a postcard of Marc Chagall’s Laiterie (Dairy), 1933; our artists’ book In Padova, looking for you, 2011; mail from dear oly; a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; paper ephemera recently received from our friend Olivia; and a lucky find from wilds of Ballarat.

Thank-you for the invitation, Irene. It was terribly fun to compile this for you.


{But a peep.}

+ Something new soon is coming. And from Louise as well.