{Mickey proved no Oily Bird but clever mouse and the scene it played as expected, at ten minutes to two.}
There is a beautiful description in Little Dorrit of Mrs Plornish’s father as an old man “timidly threading his way to the town-mouse’s lodging through a city of cats”. It is one of many I have marked in my increasingly dog-eared copy.
Noise and bustle, all noise and bustle have these recent days been. It describes the tail end of a winter that seems to have caught me unawares; it is a pace ferocious. The Melbourne Launch of Dear Dad is more than forthcoming; it’s very near here. Pop along on Tuesday the 24th of August to The Wheeler Centre at 11am to dip toe in poetry waters. (For those in Sydney, there is to be a launch there too, on Saturday the 4th of September at the Rex Centre at 10am.)
See you at the launch, and until then I wish you some quiet time.
(Misha is, to those who do not know, a cat abandoned by her previous owners. She lives in our back garden, our back garden that at present resembles a small construction site.)
Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping along a sacred air, as though bewildered and a little frightened by the noise and bustle.Noise and bustle describe aptly these past few days as a new fence some twenty metres in length is erected in the back garden between our neighbours and our selves. The old tilted fence has been demolished and in its place are eight tall red gum poles and an orange string line. Soon the pales will be in place, I hope, soon. After a long night consoling the inconsolable, I am hoping this is soon. Misha bellowed repeatedly as though expelling all air. A mournful sound, over and over, it was the sound of a wild thing caught indoors and it nearly tore my heart in two.
(Chapter XXXI, Spirit)
Noise and bustle, all noise and bustle have these recent days been. It describes the tail end of a winter that seems to have caught me unawares; it is a pace ferocious. The Melbourne Launch of Dear Dad is more than forthcoming; it’s very near here. Pop along on Tuesday the 24th of August to The Wheeler Centre at 11am to dip toe in poetry waters. (For those in Sydney, there is to be a launch there too, on Saturday the 4th of September at the Rex Centre at 10am.)
See you at the launch, and until then I wish you some quiet time.
(Misha is, to those who do not know, a cat abandoned by her previous owners. She lives in our back garden, our back garden that at present resembles a small construction site.)
{The gramophone crackled, the little pig swept, and the road it was lined with aloes.}
{Day and night, night and day, Robinson Crusoe proved an unfailing guide.}
{Dashiell Hammett's Thin Man leads us neatly to the Grotto of Lacroma (where Richard the Lionheart found refuge).}
In addition to the cover, these four collages feature in Dear Dad, and are our collaborative response to the theme set. There is a Mickey Mouse watch in there for my Dad, a handsome white car for Louise's Dad, and plenty of references to films from the 30s and 40s watched and story books read.
