Bloomsday 2010

The Common Shrew is proud to celebrate her birthday on Bloomsday.





























Here's a photo of young Molly Bloom, in the shade of an olive tree in the Alameida Gardens,
Gibraltar, rushing home late to a scolding after an assignation under the fig trees.

Here's to embracing life and here's to us all on such a day in the writer's year.

Poetry on the Deck, Riverbend Books Bulimba

Come out and support your local poets!

night after night i have written poetry for you
on your typewriter
and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet
comes out of his hole when it is done
and reads it and sniffs at it
he is jealous of my poetry
he used to make fun of me when we were both human
he was a punk poet himself
and after he reads it he sneers
and then he eats it

-archy the cockroach - Don Marquis,archy and mehitabel

Queensland Poetry Festival is proud to partner with Queensland Writers Centre and Riverbend Books to present the Riverbend Poetry Series, A State of Writing initiative.

Now in its fifth year, the Riverbend Poetry Series has inspired, entertained and delighted audiences again in 2010.

The date for your diary: Tuesday June 22

Queensland Poetry Festival, QLD Writers Centre & Riverbend Books are proud to present the final event in the Riverbend Poetry Series for 2010. Join us on the Riverbend deck as we launch the 2010 QLD Poetry Festival Program with readings from three of this year's programmed artists: award winning poet Ynes Sanz, rhyme-spitting word-dynamo Darkwing Dubs and the soulfully elegant Suzanne Jones.

And as this is the final event for 2010, we are going out with a bang, launching ‘A Million Bright Things' CD which captures some of the best readings and performances from QPF 2009. To launch the CD, members of the QPF Committee and some of the featured local talent will read a selection of poems from the CD. Indeed, this is going to be a gig not to be missed!

Bookings are essential and can be made by contacting Riverbend Books. Ticket price includes sushi and a glass of wine. All events begin at 6.30pm.

Date: Tuesday 22 June

Location: Riverbend Books, 193 Oxford St. Bulimba

Time: Doors open for the event at 6pm for a 6:30pm start

Tickets: $10 available through Riverbend Books and include sushi and complimentary wine. To purchase tickets, call Riverbend Books on (07) 3899 8555 (07) 3899 8555 or book online at www.riverbendbooks.com.au

These events are always hugely popular, so book early to avoid disappointment!

Nigel's Nightie: No. 2 in an occasional series entitled 'Smokin' Jackets'

OK I know there's some prestidigitation involved in this peignoir but the chance of a guest appearance from celebrity like Nigel from Life with Dogs was just too tempting!

The Wiz had been hoping for a green velvet number with a cravat, but a dog can dream (as long as it doesn't involve too much howling and those annoying running movements with the legs !)

Wiza warmer : No.1 in an occasional series entitled 'Smokin' Jackets'.

'You can judge a society by the way it treats its animals' - Gandhi.






















.. and you can sort of judge our society by the way some of its people treat some of their animals.

In this occasional series, you're invited to admire some of the best of them, in all their sartorial splendour ... or was that silliness? Leave a comment if you want to submit a photo of your best-dressed greyhound in an excellent bed-jacket, and the Shrew will put the best on the blog.

NB. No 'fancy dress' (and try to keep the fluff bunnies out of those bedrooms shots, she may be 'Common' but an old girl has her standards!)

May Day 2010: The words of an unknown worker and unionist

WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS

We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed
Though there’s never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers dead
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool
But if blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God we have paid in full

There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we’re buried alive for you
There’s never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God we have paid it in

We have fed you all for a thousand years
For that was our doom, you know
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike a week ago
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives
And we’re told it’s your legal share
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God we bought it fair.

Juggling: No. 10 in an occasional series entitled 'Harmless Hobbies for Mad Old Bags'.

Juggling is Good For You.

Don't just take my word for it, though - have a look here.
Now that brain training by on-line problem solving has been trashed, it's apparently back to the asbestos mitts for those of us who want to keep the synapses supple ... but I think those bad grey socks should definitely go.

STOP PRESS: BRISBANE POET SHORTLISTED FOR ABR POETRY PRIZE

Announced in the April 2010 edition of the Australian Book Review, this year's five
shortlisted poets' names and entries can be found on the ABR website.

The winner will be announced in the May edition.

ABR Shortlisted Brisbane Poet Ynes Sanz.

Poppies in the Gardens

Click to see details of this special event in the symbolic Freedom Wall pavilion at

Brisbane's Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens.

A bit of a Song and Dance

If you're in Brisbane, you might consider the invitation on this flyer ....


A few clicks on the image will let you see the fine print ... and the splendid dancer.

Thespianism: No. 9 in an occasional series entitled 'Harmless Hobbies for Mad Old Bags'.

Some of us were in Alice in Wonderland before Johnny Depp was born.....

Seen here, the Chislehurst Road Infants' School, Orpington, Kent, England
performance, c. 1954.

CAST LIST:
Gail Foster - Alice
Marian Wiseman - The March Hare
Leslie Adams - The Dormouse
and David Something-or-other that I have forgotten (the teachers only shouted his first name) as The Mad Hatter

No green screen for us, it was one night only and if you froze you were finished.

Don't make 'em like that any more.

Sainthood, Statues and the 'Patience' of a Saint

Mary MacKillop has been announced as Australia's first saint by the Vatican.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 19/02/2010
Reporter: Ticky Fullerton

Transcript
TICKY FULLERTON, PRESENTER: The Vatican announced a short while ago that Mary McKillop will become Australia's first saint. Pope Benedict revealed tonight that she will be canonised at a ceremony in October in Rome.Mary McKillop founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph in 1866. She is revered by Catholics for setting up schools in remote country areas and working with children, female prisoners and prostitutes.

PAUL COLLINS, HISTORIAN & CATHOLIC COMMENTATOR: I have described her as a great Australian sheila. Now, that's perhaps a rather crude phrase, but nevertheless, I think it sums up the type of person that she is: a practical person, a person who saw a real social need, who saw the children in the bush particularly needed education and culture and she organised a group of sisters to be able to meet that need.

TICKY FULLERTON: She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995. Last year the Vatican accepted that blessed Mary had performed a miracle involving the healing of a person suffering from cancer. Mary McKillop had a controversial life and at one stage was excommunicated from the Church for allegedly disobeying authorities. However, she continued to spend her life caring for the poor.

The Common Shrew says that's as may be. You can read what a poet of her acquaintance had to say on the subject on the occasion of her canonisation at the post for 11 August 2010.

The Poetry of the Winter Olympics

No I don't just mean the poetry, I mean the poetry. Up there at the opening ceremony! Acclaimed by that huge crowd and seen the world over, Canadian poet Shane L. Koyczan, the nicest guy anyone could wish to meet, a man who can reduce even the most hard-boiled old bag to tears with a line, as I know from personal experience, having mc'd his gig at a Queensland Poetry Festival!

Poetry - on the world stage !!

and you can hear that poem - right here


and here, from his website, at http://www.houseofparlance.com/koyczan/index.html is another small example of the reason why

6:59 AM

I’ve been told

that people in the army
do more by 7:00 am
than I do
in an entire day

but if I wake
at 6:59 am
and turn to you
to trace the outline of your lips
with mine
I will have done enough
and killed no one
in the process.

- Shane Koyczan, Visiting Hours

and there was kd lang, too singing Leonard Cohen, and suddenly I thought, yeah, all right, I DO belong in this world!

... and so I say to the vast majority who perplex and perturb my life day after day, in the immortal words of Shane L. Koyczan:

"stop it
write me a poem to make me happy"

Well, hit me with a hot ukulele!

I did warn you that an attack of ukuleles was imminent!

The Euphonious Ukulele : No. 8 in an occasional series entitled 'Harmless Hobbies for Mad Old Bags'.

Well thank goodness the end-of-year kerfuffle and dust has settled.

It's time to get down to the serious pursuit of idleness again.
Not mere half-assed insouciant idleness, but idleness enhanced
by a rich tapestry of hobbies, that is.

And so for your delectation I bring you the ukulele, an instrument
named for 'a jumping flea'.

You have not heard the last of this, dear reader.

Meanwhile, to get you used to the idea, you may like to
contemplate this 1916 postcard, sourced from http://www.janesoceania.com

The Patented Antidote for Seasonal Insanity

OK I''ll admit it, the previous post was so premature as to risk seeming malicious.
Blame the sea of earlier-than-ever pre-Christmas hype in which I am sinking.

In an effort to atone I offer the following cartoon as an antidote:
( a simple click will render it visible, dear reader)

You may see more of the like wit at the Patented Wondermark

What! Christmas in November? Ha! greyhounds don't follow calendars either ...

Well, 12th night has come and gone, so the cheesy Christmas-musical greyhound elf-dance has been turned off for this year, but don't despair, I'm sure I'll find something equally tacky to post in 12 months' time .....

Gladrags from Bags : No. 7 in an occasional series entitled 'Harmless Hobbies for Mad Old Bags'.

Ladies, ever wondered how to clean up those bags AND look chic on a budget?

Well here's your answer.

Cathy Kasdan knitted these amazing garments out of discarded plastic bags!

These and other examples of one woman's plastic fantastic at the artist's website. http://www.cathykasdan.com/

November is Orchid time

Yep orchids from my garden to my table has this lady dancing! Sorry, folks, you'll just have to imagine their delicate melon-y perfume. Enjoy!

The Secret Gardener

Yippee! With Spring truly sprung and the first rains bringing out the snails, it's good to have seen this beautiful creature a few times and know that I have back-up in the garden.

Can't see it yet? What you're looking for is the Blue-tongued Skink. Its scientific name is Tiliqua scincoides. This 25cm lizard likes to wander round gardens in the daytime finding many different things to eat, including fruit, flowers, eggs and snails.

Here it is in a more assertive moment ...

Happy Spring!

Printemps - Marc Chagall

Yes, it's Spring in the Southern hemisphere.

All over Brisbane, dogs with short memories are being startled by bluetongue lizards, viruses are raising their tiny heads and soon, all kinds of large black and white birds will begin to swoop on human beings who will respond by drawing eyeballs on their hats in a vain attempt to deter them.

Make of it all what you will.