Author Archives: Therese Trouserzoff

Indian Call Centres – Fighting Fire with Fire

11 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Emmjay

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Simulated Emm-tel Call Centre

The other day I made the mistake of trying to work from my home office.  The phone rang.  It wasn’t my mobile.  It was that piece of Bakelite artistry up the end with the Neolithic dust and the desiccated cockroach carapaces.

I answered it.  Pause.

“Hello – can I speak with the home owner”
“She’s out”
“Who am I speaking with ?”
“Who’s asking?”
“My name is Darren”
“Hello Darren – who are you with ?”
“I’m calling about your mobile plan”
“Why are you calling me on the landline?”
“Is this your mobile number xxx-xxx-xxxx?”
“Might be – what interest is it of yours?”
“I’m calling to offer you a better plan?”
“Why don’t you just give me the better plan?”
“…. something garbled…….. Telstra…….”
“Where are you calling from, Darren ?”
“ I am calling from the Telstra call centre”
“Where?”
“The (somewhere in India) Telstra Call Centre”
“I thought so”
“I am able to offer you an improved plan for your mobile”
“I sincerely doubt that, Darren”
“Do you want to hear about the plan ?”
“No, I was trying to earn a quid to pay my phone bill”
“OK, thank you for your time”
“No, the pleasure was all mine”

It seems that two of the most frustrating timewasters in modern life are accepting rubbish marketing calls – and the other side of the coin – complaining to Telcos when something goes awry.

But I chanced to let the two pains in the arse stew awhile together and in the manner of the old aphorism that if it doesn’t kill you it will make you stronger – or that a tiny amount of some poisons are actually useful, and I think I have come up with one of the great inventions of the 21st century.

I plan to set up my own call centre in some place that’s cheaper than India, – let’s say Chad- but which costs a shitload of money to call from anywhere, but especially from India – maybe even Tierra del Fuego) – and I rent a slice of it out to you.  Well, I rent out a very special service that I can offer you for a very reasonable price.

Here’s how it works:

When a call centre calls your phone, the service switches the call to my call centre where it is answered on your behalf.

“Hello, this is Gez and Helvi’s service, how may you help us?”
“Is this Hung One On’s mobile number XXX XXX XXXX?”
“No, this is Gez and Helvi’s service, how may you help us?”
“Can I speak with Warrigal?”
“No, he’s busy at present”
“When will he be available?”
“Who, Hung ?”
“No, Gez or Helvi”
“I thought you wanted to speak with Warrigal”
“You said that Warrigal is unavailable”
“I could find out if Neville Cole is available”
“Is this his number?”
“No, perhaps you would like to speak with Voice or Vivienne”
“Are they there?”
“No, this is Gez and Helvi’s service – how may you help us ? – I might be able to put Big M or Jayell on”

Of course we would get a cut from TeleChad or TeledelFuego – and we would pay you a dividend for every call that went over half an hour.

But it gets better.

Suppose you need to complain to Telstra about your ADSL line dropping out.  Only a mad person would want to call Telstra directly – otherwise you get to spend an eternity in hand-offs amongst every call centre in the western and eastern worlds.  And I for one love the good people of the Philippines, but their telephones, well, ………

So here’s how my outgoing call service  helps you.

You write your complaint on a crisp $10 note and send it to Emm-tel, briefly detailing your issue / problem / complaint.

We ignore the words and bank the $10.  Then our Chad operator calls up Telstra and complains that your service is not working and that you want it terminated immediately.  We say words like Telecommunications Ombudsman.

We demand a full refund of all monies you have paid for the service and say that we will be phoning Ellen Jones – using our neighbour Sandshoe’s phone.

They offer a full refund and a superior plan.  We say that we will consider their offer after we have had a chat with Optus.  They offer an even better improved plan.  We say that we will consider it.

They say that you can have x amounts of free stuff.  We say we will get back to them.

We call Sandshoe and she asks you whether the deal is a goer or not.
It’s your call.
Nobody recontacts the Emm-tel Chad.
They go ahead anyway.

Note, we suggest (but not strongly) that you only use this service if you have a genuine complaint – otherwise that wouldn’t be ethical, would it ?

Stay tuned we plan to offer a premium service where we call Microsoft for you.

Pig’s Psalm 20 – On Saturday Arvo They Rested

30 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in Emmjay, Pig Psalms

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Blessed be the tireless workers, Our Merv,
For they shall inherit the Long Weekend
At the end of the footy season and
Before the wasteland before the Cricket
And in the morning, it being sunny,  the beach will beckon

But not the beach where the post-season footy tour goes.
Especially the losing teams.
Our Merv, grant everyone their wish for a great season.
Deny only the massed highway patrol their double demerit points.

And the virtuous supporters and the valiant players will walk with thee
Out of the change-room and into the sunny upland of the Sportsman’s Bar.
And restesth there for evermore, with bent elbow and laconic smiles.

Experience in a Limbo Haze

28 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by in Sandshoe

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Sunbird

Story and Artwork by Sandshoe

The 75 cents woman lent me 75 cents one afternoon when she thought I needed to be offered a loan and I agreed after consideration she was sincere, earnest, could top up my change that added up to $1.75 and make it $2.50.  She told me I could buy a meal.  I agreed to be nice, although in truth I needed the meal.  She gave me directions.  That’s not why I call her the 75cents woman.  That’s a bit of a story.

When I saw her as I anticipated a few days later and was listening to her as I always did my best to although what she had to talk about was almost always about her property and bored me, she became more agitated than she usually is.  Her topic was not her property and the problems of owning it, but about a close female friend of hers who drove off leaving her owed several hundred dollars and as far as she was concerned, as she was saying, an explanation of why the almost overnight disappearance.  The more agitated the woman got as the story developed the more I felt insecure about owing her 75 cents even though I was on my way to the bank to get it anyway, but felt obliged to defer to listen to her story when suddenly she said between thin lips stretched tight as the thread of a sewing needle between two fingers snapping it taut to verify its strength that she really would appreciate it if I returned the money.

I know.  It seems ridiculous I did not have 75 cents in my pocket.

It usually would be alright if it was not just that people were, well, doing what they are doing and she really needed the money.  It would be different I agreed if people were not doing what they were doing and of course I would give her the money as soon as I was back from the bank where I had to go. My wording was nice I thought and meant to not place any sense of duress on her that I was going only to the bank for 75cents.

She thanked me with a reference of repeated conciliation that if it was not for what people were doing to her she would not be in the least concerned about the 75 cents. It was just that she would appreciate having the money returned to her because she was so short that week and she wasn’t going to be taken for a fool any longer. She should learn (I agreed with her) in the same way she intimated I would by asking me the emphatic question did I think she would ever learn.  I hesitated to rush out of the door and leave her alone given her need to talk to someone so I repeated for her greater sense of security my own reference that I supposed she would learn.  She would have to learn she agreed vehemently otherwise who knows what might happen to her if she didn’t and I suggested I would be soon back with the 75 cents.  Which I was.  Not far and the bank had its full staff on counter duty so every cage was operational.

I counted it out.

The carpet in the main bedroom of one of the houses had to be replaced which meant she had no money she told me as I set the final five on the top of the silver stack. No good I said with a tone of expressive sympathy. The tenant just left like that. She had a run of bad luck with tenants I observed.  I thanked my lucky star silently I was not a tenant, but chance to speak by way of reply allowed me chance to thank her for being patient while I got the money from the bank, although I assured her I understood she needed a rest and I was not an inconvenience.  She said she had finished most of what she had to do.  She enjoyed dropping in to sit and read the paper.  Not in any hurry she reiterated her feet were so sore.  Pages of the news paper were fluttered and flapped and flustered.  It hardly feels like 7 years I’ve been coming here she stated as pages spun over and tangled and rolled onto each other like happy bear cubs tumbling which looked curious I considered later.  How long have you been coming here she asked.  She paused turning pages to lavishly moisten the thumb and finger she was using by licking each  to better toss pages apart from the other when they entwined.

I watched out of a sense of helpless awe as insidious as watching a train wreck spread people flat on the ground and out of windows. Is it long she asked indicating at my silence as distraction she could not entertain.  It’s a while I ventured turning my back on the image of the saliva and climbed away from the wreck to mental ground that allowed feigned indifference to what was happening to the newspaper rise like a pure white cloud above a gently steaming train.  The last thing I wanted to do was antagonize her given I could see the dimension of her suffering was greater than usual.  Have you got the telephone directory she suddenly asked and looked up.  No, I said, nettled by her looking directly at me where I was sitting in a blue chair with my arms resting on its puffy arm rests.  No, I repeated and stood up to look and walk around the chair and through the requisite door to secure the telephone directory from beside the telephone on the desk in the adjoining room.  It’s here I said as I returned and thrust the large book forward at arms length by way of indicating I had fetched it to be helpful.  She took it and screwed up her eyes and her nose as she set to finding a telephone number by holding the book up to the light at an angle and her head on an acute angle.  I sat down.  Got it. Aah, I have to ring them.

The emphasis on them was italic as it always was in reference to the people or the firm or that lot she would ring. She dropped the book she had doubled almost in two to a dangling arms length by her side as she stood to her feet with a struggle of hip and buttocks and stalked in her usual manner at this time of the afternoon towards the room behind me where the telephone was and the telephone book had been.

Damn she said, returning, I can’t ring them now.  That would not be wise.  I need your help.  What could I do I wondered out loud.  You could remind me in half and hour to ring these people I have to ring because they will not be in now and I won’t remember when they are. It had not occurred. I  conceded that someone would have to remind her.  Did she have a mobile telephone.  She could set the alarm to a low volume ringtone and vibrate.  Hoh, she snorted, that’s no good and resumed her position flicking the curling pages of the newspaper.

“I’ll forget what I set it for,” she said and laughed the whinnying kind of laugh that people do when the muscles of their vocal chords have almost nearly contracted to occlude sound.  It was a wheeze followed by a giggle that stretched to a tee hee like a tee pee. It was a cone of sound that stopped at a high volume and rang like a monotonous ringtone.

The next morning I gave a lesson on email to a woman.  I was tired and her laugh was like a shaft of wood in a broken horse cart.  It snapped off even as she framed it and she smiled instead like a pixie with bright eyes and a silver fringe of straight hair like a cat walk model’s.  The light spackle of dotted freckles gives her an appearance like a loved child’s toy.  She lost her own child in an adoption bungle when he was born and she was too young to resist authority so authority she has no respect for.  She writes letters about social policy and politicians and street louts and wild families.  It is hard to laugh in the face of such adversity and myself I chuckle as much as I can.  When we left to go our respective ways, I take trouble as usual to steer my way past the coffee table corner before I am asked to tutor its worried business woman who never arrives with a biro of her own to use and is always filled with feelings of dread…

The numerologist was at the bus stop with his worldly shopping bags and bags of books, but not so laden to not seem freer in his concerns and with his replies than might be expected on a hot day.  He seems to swing with the bags as if his fragile torso cannot resist the motion once that has begun.  He is a repatriate who lived in India he has told me and wishes to translate and publish the Adelaide telephone directories as volumes of numerological significance and similarly, a key of a town street map and its addresses where he lived in India.  We part at the street corner after a short walk of ritual when we disembark from our bus journey to the outer suburbs.

Goat Man

26 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by in Neville Cole

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"My goat is very alluring", says Neville, just before .....

Story by Neville Cole

I am Goat Man

As I write this it is 4am. I am brewing some coffee. The sun won’t be up for hours; but I am.

I have just woken from a lucid dream. I was convinced at first I was not asleep but merely dozing. The dream started when I noticed my bedroom light flash on briefly. That seemed strange but I was too tired to open my eyes fully and see what was going on. Then I sensed a woman crawling into bed behind me. Naturally I wanted to turn and see who this mysterious woman was but I could not open my eyes or move. I suddenly became aware I was dreaming but I was convinced that the woman was still behind me. I told myself to wake up. I had to repeat the command a few times but eventually I did open my eyes and roll over to the sudden realization that I do, in fact, live alone and that I was, in reality, just having a weird dream.

I think I know why this dream happened. Call it a perfect mental storm.

For one, I am still very jet-lagged from a recent flight back from Australia. I have made that flight more than 20 times but for some reason this time I have struggled mightily to get back to my own time zone. I have been up each morning by 4 since I got back. I have been napping at sunset for a few hours and for two nights in a row I have been put right to sleep by Bill Maher. Now, I don’t agree with a lot of what Bill says, but he almost always keeps me engaged and entertained.

Apart from this obvious sleep deprivation, I am currently working through a recurring pattern of obsessive self-doubt and regret that is part and parcel of my bi-annual whirlwind tours of my homeland. Add to my fear and loathing the fact that I am currently reading Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare at Goats and it is pretty easy to see what is going on.

Ronson’s book is barely recognizable as the source of the enjoyable motion picture romp of the same name featuring among others Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, and Kevin Spacey. At the beginning of that movie is the warning that “more of this is true than you would believe;” but falling into this brief, rabbit hole tale is mind-bending experience of the tallest order. The Men Who Stare at Goats is like something concocted by Hunter S. Thompson for Rolling Stone. In just over 250 pages, Ronson manages to tie the spoon bending skills of Uri Geller; the Heaven’s Gate cult suicides; the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and the popular US military slogan “Be All That You Can Be” back to the new age ideas of one Vietnam-vet-turned-hippie.

Ronson sets up his tale by asking his reader to accept one of four possible scenarios:

1. It just never happened.

2. A couple of crazy renegades in the higher levels of the U.S. Intelligence community acted alone to put these events in motion.

3. U.S Intelligence is the repository of incredible secrets, which are kept from us for our own good. Or…

4. The U.S. Intelligence community was, back then, essentially nuts through and through.

As each page turns these four scenarios shift about in your brain (or just maybe they actually shift your brain about in your head). “No, that didn’t happen. Oh, that makes sense. Oh my god! Why did I never think of that before!”

The title of the book refers specifically to some secret experiments reported to have occurred at the military installation at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Apparently, a select group of soldiers were trained to kill goats just by staring at them. It’s not clear how many goats, if any, actually died; but the program had enough success that a group of psychic soldier (PsyOps) known as the Earth First Battalion was created. The book suggests this group has been reborn today within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to help fight the War on Terror.

In the end, it’s not the truth that matters; as whichever scenario you finally accept, the story is still by turns entertaining and harrowing but always thought-provoking. All of which adds up to exactly the wrong kind of book for a highly fatigued and self-doubting individual to read into the early hours, especially on a work night.

Still, as Robert Plant once famously sang: “Ooh, it makes me wonder. Ooh, it makes me wonder.”

You see, I have, for a good part of the last two decades, turned my back on metaphysics and anything even remotely new age. That’s not to say I haven’t had my moments of elevated thought; but, for the most part, I have stayed grounded (and mostly satisfied I might add) in the here and now.

I was raised in the distinctly new age, some say cultish, religion known as Christian Science. Yeah, that’s right, the ones who don’t believe in doctors. As my faith faded, I dabbled, as many ex-CSers do, in Eastern thought, Tao, Zen and Buddhism in particular; but finally, in my early thirties, I resolved to accept that life was indeed a cabaret and decided that I would be a lot happier if I just learned to enjoy the cabaret.

I have been pretty happy and pretty lucky and remarkably healthy ever since. I haven’t wasted much time wondering what it’s all about. I’ve been resigned to fate. I’ve described myself from time to time as a secular humanist, a cynical optimist and an hopeful pessimist. I’ve tried to do my share of good things mostly because it feels good to do so. I’ve noted that, for the most part, when I make the effort to do something that I don’t have to do – especially something creative – well, somehow it seems to work out that I gain something from that effort. I’ve also seen that things I’ve tried to hide or lied about eventually get uncovered. I don’t call this karma. To me, it’s just the way things work.

The only problem is, when you leave things mostly to fate for too long, you tend to feel a little bit out of control and I’ve been growing increasingly tired of that feeling. As a result, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to get a little bit more proactive with my existence. I’m tired of doing OK. It would be really nice to excel for a while. Maybe I have fallen down the rabbit hole myself a bit this morning but I have a very real sense that somehow things are about to fall into place.

Yesterday, on a whim, I sent in a headshot and resume to a casting agency and asked them to arrange an audition for an upcoming TV commercial. I could really use the extra cash right now. I also have a long term plan. I would like to return to acting before I am forced to retire and see if I can finally realize my dream of getting a decent role in one really good movie. I am interested to see if I can influence my future in some small way right here, right now. Can I project myself to that audition? Am I able to influence the casting agency from a completely blind call and get myself in front of the director? If I do get the audition, how do I overturn past failures and finally find some success? After all, I gave up acting all those years ago because I was useless at auditions.

But now I am getting ahead of myself. If I’ve learned anything from The Men Who Stare at Goats is that metaphysical projection takes intense focus. I need to start with some baby steps. I can’t kill a goat right out of the box. Let’s see if I can get that audition first. Then I’ll take things from there.

After all, if I can control my dreams, why shouldn’t I be able to control my reality? Isn’t it better to be the man staring at the goat than the goat?

My Fellow American

22 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by in Politics in the Pig's Arms

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Friends of the Pig’s Arms,

I received this Email in our contributors in-box, and in the spirit of open dialogue, I present it here.  Cheddar warning !

Emm.

=================================================
Hello

My Fellow American is a film project in the United States devoted to recognizing that Muslims are our neighbors. I am reaching out to you because you addressed the recent events in Oslo, Norway, on Window Dresser’s Arms Pig & Whistle and I am hoping you will share this message of tolerance with your readers. We’ve put together a 2 minute film that I believe you will be interested in sharing, watching, and discussing:

http://myfellowamerican.us

I would love it if you could post or tweet about this and share the video. If you can, please let me know. I am here if you have any questions. Thank you so much.

Elizabeth

—
Elizabeth Potter
Unity Productions Foundation
myfellowamerican.us
facebook.com/MyFellowAmericanProject
@usmuslimstories

The Big Chill Moment

20 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by in Algernon

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Story by Algernon – Image from “The Big Chill“

On Wednesday night the phone rang. Answering the phone the reply came in a trembling voice “Hi Algernon, Virginia here, I’m just calling to let you know that Peter died on Monday night  in hospital after battling with pneumonia over the weekend” A long conversation ensured where I gave her  contacts of old friends. Peter was 52. Peter and Virginia were the first of our group to get married nearly 30 years ago.

I last saw Peter in 1996. We started High School in the same class in 1971. What made Peter different was that he was a haemophiliac. Most people would not have come into contact with haemophiliacs though I had through scouts and was aware of the brittle bones and that their blood wouldn’t clot. To understand what haemophilia its better described here http://www.haemophilia.org.au/bleedingdisorders/cid/2/parent/0/pid/2/t/bleedingdisorders/title/haemophilia  (Source Haemophilia Foundation Australia).

Our school had a diverse group of boys from many backgrounds. It was also the last year that boys came from the farms in the hills district though they continued to come from the oyster farms on the Hawkesbury. Ironically Peter’s father was the first Principal at the new Galston High School that opened the following year and where most of those off the farms went after our year.  Boys being what they are can be a rough and tumble lot. I recall that once Peter had so sort of a difference of opinion with someone who lined up to thump him. Quickly thinking I through myself between the two and said if you hit him you might kill him, if you must hit someone hit me instead. The other boy backed down and Peter and my friendship grew from then.

He left the school for a while then returned in his later years to finish his high schooling. He was told many things by Doctors, like he would not live much past 25, he’d never have a job, play sport , was counselled against getting married and having children. We he was having none of that, He studied economics at University, worked with a bank, played Cricket; he and I had many memorable innings playing D grade, rode motorbikes, fixed cars, got married and had kids. He was not going to let his illness define him, though in many ways it did and for the benefit of those coming after him.

Peter was a committed Socialist with strong social justice values and a Christian for all of his life.

Our group shared many good times before and after he got married.  For me a meal at their place on a Thursday was a highlight and an institution for a few years.  As we all got older, marriage, children and careers took over or we moved elsewhere in the state or country each of us slowly lost contact with one another only occasionally catching up.

After the funeral, I caught up with old friends, many I hadn’t seen for years. For mine I expected that they would look like they would have 10, 15 20 years ago, yet Mrs A and I hadn’t changed a bit. They were all older, greyer and wearing all wearing glasses. All but Mark who with Retinitis Pigmentosa and no longer needs them. Not that he can see that well either.

This was our Big Chill moment. All bought together by the Peters death. Some travelling far, others locally. Mark is now a Professor at a University had come down on the train, his condition robbing him of his capacity to drive some years ago. He’s now on his third marriage. His first ended in violence from his first wife. The first time I met her after he announced his intentions I thought this will be lucky to last two years. Peter, at one of our regular Thursday night dinners, followed me out to the car to ask what I thought where told him what I thought of Marks first wife to be I told him I give them two years. He said you’d give it that long would you. Our concern was that he was making a big mistake. Alas we did and said nothing.

Simon went onto become a church minister. After a few country postings he’s now in Sydney. I commented that he’d probably officiated at a few funerals. In the country he’d done many. In the city, he told us most opted for a civil service as was Peters. He comments though he’d never given a Eulogy for a spouse and Virginia’s was a powerful one. He had married his childhood sweetheart.

Ivan stood there in silence with his wife. He was a debt collector with the bank a job he’d worked in all his life. They had never moved out of the area. Iain also started High school in the same class. They looked old even though he was slightly younger than me and his wife a year or so older.

Virginia came to talk to all of us, thanking all of us for coming. She mentioned that others from interstate were unable to come.  We all commented on how powerful her Eulogy was. She in her own way worried about one word.

She talked of his life, how he lived in constant pain, but how he would be at the forefront of how to treat this. In the early days frozen packs of factor 8 would give him the freedom he had never had.  The legacy was Hepatitis C. He was the first to have orthopaedic surgery to have his knees replaced in his twenties. He watched as over 85% of his cohort succumbed to AIDS in the 1980’s. Nowadays the factor 8 is synthetic. He talked with Medical students about Haemophilia. A generation of medical students from Universities of Sydney and NSW have their medical knowledge of Haemophilia because of Peter. For many years he was CEO of the Haemophilia Foundation, here he was able to lobby governments on behalf to allow various treatments to be made available on the NHS. Here is a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/haemophiliac-left-out-in-the-cold-20101107-17j1y.html

He and his wife adopted a child from India in the 1980’s. He hated prejudice.  They were asked if the child liked curry at the time the child was 6 months old. A son arrived later and was able to do things that Peter was unable to do physically.  Over time his body became weaker. At one of his last medical appointments after dragging himself down stairs he went to cross the road to the car. Lighting a cigarette to summon the strength to cross the road to the car. It was a non smoking area. Some officious young thing came up to him and said the rules say you can’t smoke here. Peter drawings breath and replied said “Really, well it’s a shame there isn’t a rule for fuckwits”. Then dragged himself across the road to the car.

Heading off to the wake afterwards we caught up with other old friends. The house was packed and the support for the family was evident. Sally had come down from a large town in the mid west near Molong. She’d been a teacher moving from country town to country town for many years. Her and her husband chose to settle there after making friend ships the seeing them move somewhere else. She had 5 children one married two at uni and two the same age as the Algenoninas.  It was the need to belong somewhere that had them settle where they did.

Mrs Algernon commented that 20 or 30 years ago we would have all talked about our aspirations. Nowadays with all our children almost finishing high school or tertiary educations we now talk about our children’s aspirations.

Someone suggested we should all catch up again sometime but then said would it be the same. The point is we all had grown up together, gone into different careers, got married, moved to different areas, settled there, had our families and became part of those communities. Our lives and times had moved on with us.

The Days when America was Everywhere

20 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by in Lehan Winifred Ramsay

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Europe 09

Image and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay

I can tell you where I was on 9/11, 2001. I was in front of the television. Most people were, I think. This 9/11 I made a special effort to stay away from the television. When is television going to learn from the other media, as we have, that its grip on our minds and hearts is no longer a given?

It was a big thing, it’s true. A lot of people died, and it was all captured on film. It’s not like a hundred years ago, when something like that happening would have filled columns on the front page of the newspaper, a day or two after it’s happening. And then ten years later, a mention of the memorial service, crowds, rousing speeches. Yes, a lot of things happened over this ten years. Nothing that looked as alluring on television though.

Photogenic, is what they call it. Somehow the person or non-person looks even better on film than they do in real life. We surely can’t say that our overwhelming attention on this scene, on this story, is just our obsession with ourselves, with our small part of the world.

No, there is something alluring about this story.

A lot of it looks like a movie. A lot like the kind of special effects that come out of America. And it is a bit ironic, because it’s very rare that such effects come out of a real life drama. Real life dramas are usually a bit more prosaic. Like – too much smoke, or too far in the distance to be able to get any detail. Had the day been cloudy, for example, much of the startling sharpness of the documentation would have been lost.

Then there is poignancy to the fact that the missiles had voices. The bullets huge airplanes filled with ordinary people going about their lives. With mobile phones. The buildings filled with people filling in the details of what happened. It’s no wonder that the names of the people who died have been put down in so many dimensions, when the dimension of Who was Where When with Who was added. Because we know.

And then – the missiles were us. Turning our planes on ourselves. Like taking the hand of a child and making him hit himself. A double insult. I say us because it was both America’s tragedy, only America’s – but somehow it also was not someone else’s tragedy. It was our tragedy.

How?  How was it our tragedy?  Perhaps it was simply because we were saturated with it.

We watched it, and watched it, for months, and now when we look at the tenth anniversary of it, what we are seeing and reliving are those months of our lives when that is what we did. We are commemorating the experience of seeing it on television.

Perhaps it was a moment – the moment, of a new kind of connection for us. One where the smallest and largest grids were in place, the tiniest personal gesture with the hugest intention, where it all came together to give us the most detailed and massive depiction of damage that we had ever seen. Perhaps the perpetrators would be embarrassed to realize that they gave us the Greatest Show on Earth, and that it was from America. And perhaps it was ironic that television had been “internationalized” by the wars of Kuwait and Iraq. Access to cable television, CNN, and satellite had been in part pushed along by those wars. So too perhaps was our tolerance to endless depictions of damage.

We all remember 9/11 because we were there. We were in our living rooms, our offices, in front of screens, there. Ten years on we can still remember it clearly as we place ourselves back in front of screens, there. How could we forget the day our television opened up and spat out such a vision to us. Like the first real 3D movie, not an imagined space but a collective one; our first truly Sensurround experience.

As for the rest of us, those who were not America, perhaps we had never before realized how big America was. And it was huge. Far bigger than the biggest flat-screen. Far bigger than the biggest network. It was everywhere. It was in every lounge room, in the corner of every restaurant, in a window of every village. I don’t believe that there was any place that did not know America in those days, in those early 2001 days. Perhaps we will never again know an America as big as that. Myself, I saw America in a foreign land, and I saw it whilst waving goodbye my holiday plans in the days after, not knowing how far the dust of this America would be traveling.

Do you remember? How America was everywhere? Do you remember, that we held our breath, wondering what America was going to do, wondering if we should look away, seeing the handprint of America’s own hand upon its cheek? Do you remember how you tried to go about your business but just couldn’t? Had to have another look, and another, and another? And how kind the television was, not scolding you for that, but just nicely replaying it again, just one more time, just one more time. It’s really no wonder we feel so nostalgic about it, those were generous days. These days we must sit through many more interviews in between replays. When they come they seem too short to give us that breathless feeling. Perhaps at some time in the future that will be considered voyeurism, we will no longer be free to gaze. Those of us who were there, those of us will never forget the indulgence of those early days.

It has been ten years. The America has had its revenge, ten years of it, and we have watched some of it, most of the time. I wonder if we have been satisfied. I wonder how things have gone.

Growing Older

16 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in Bands at the Pig's Arms, Entertainment Upstairs, Warrigal Mirriyuula

≈ 36 Comments

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Playlist and image by Warrigal Mirriyuula

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9b4y-jY3ng

Matt Munro, Sunrise Sunset

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3vxEudif8

David Bowie, Changes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZdiXvDU4P0

Billy Joel, Vienna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipc9pL27krs

Steely Dan, Hey 19

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv6_TSTy27o

Rod Stewart, Handbags & Gladrags

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPk11AugG4c

Jackson Brown, These Days

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zifeVbK8b-g

Elvis Costello, Veronica

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPTOY8FrvNw

Simon & Garfunkel, Old Friends

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW1l6hS0OPc

Neil Young, Old Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv5pagal-ls

Bill Withers, Granma’s Hands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYiahoYfPGk

Pink Floyd, Time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsqKdZ3JZ2k

Rod Stewart, You Wear It Well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NOZH0y7VxE

Tom Lehrer, When You’re Old And Grey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otPzP4YYFpE

Sarah Vaughn, September Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV1bnDqhMws

Dusty, Goin’ Back

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urHk3EKvImY&feature=related

Dean Martin, Young At Heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wik2uc69WbU

Peter Paul& Mary, Puff The Magic Dragon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4gXVXVXzqg

Sophie Tucker, Life Begins At 40

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bkXgxb66E

Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cUaO1P2mfo

The Beatles, The Long And Winding Road

Keywords :Matt Munro, David Bowie, Billy Joel, Steely Dan, Rod Stewart, Jackson Brown, Elvis Costello, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young, Bill Withers, Pink Floyd, Tom Lehrer, Sarah Vaughn, DustySpringfield, Dean Martin, Peter Paul& Mary, Sophie Tucker, Paul Simon, The Beatles

Greek Hills

16 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in Emmjay

≈ 49 Comments

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from The Fiesta of Men by Mark O’Connor (pub Hale and Iremonger, 1983)

The goat-summers are over, the eternal noons
Virgil, Theocritus and Horace wove
into a timeless myth.  You cannot find
those heat-hushed slopes, where goat-herds
whittling notes from reeds (while willow
twigs are thick with drinking bees) observe
the rank male-smelling beards at work for ever,
rasping the scented broom and heather.

Three thousand years have almost seen the end.
Infertile soil has nothing left to give.
But still they lick, those rough-tongued flocks
whose mouth’s the busy grave down which
whole hillsides pass.  They gnaw the thornbush
from the cliff and chew the mossy clay
like dough.  The Nymphs are Nereids now,
washed down by floods to roll
in the gasping sea; their fern-green haunts
a sunstruck canyon where cicadas
die of heat.

Yet olive and eucalypt stalk the stone redoubt
with tough guerilla troops in neutral green, will tread
the rock to pebbles, loess, marl and make
anew the chalk infertile soil.
 

I found this book of Mark O’Connor’s poems in Berkelouws while FM and I waited for a glass of red and a cheese platter to emerge.  Wine bar bookshop.  Perfect.

I encountered Mark – although he would not remember – in the mid 1970s – another denizen of Forest Lodge near Sydney Uni and a habituee  of the Forest Loge pub – otherwise known to us as the Forrie Lorrie – a fore-runner of the Pig’s Arms.  I used to share a house with Phil B in Annandale.  He was a mate of the Mark O’Connor and another great poet (now late) John Forbes.

Looking back – how lucky were we to be able to share a schooner and occasionally hang with people who would later write poems like these two.  And then I was reflecting on how we as callow youth so often do not realise important treasures in our world until later – with hindsight – after they’ve moved on.

Thank goodness for the printed word.