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Leith Johanson was to have her 29th birthday and her sister Tonnia phoned me to see if they could have an arty party here. I loved the idea of a party for a Johanson. I loved their company, and I think that they loved being here just as much.
Is it possible to see terror in something beautiful and retain that first excitement of love and appreciation? Take this sunset tonight as glimpsed between city buildings. Gorgeous! was my first reaction and it filled me with thoughts of beautiful things, those special moments that make life feel alive. That was a sunset that could put youth into the old, make the poor wealthy, and bring poetry from stones.
Look at it. Mauves and oranges. It is like the cloud caught fire and is smoldering in the sky. The mauvey greys are like smoke, the cloud made of coals as big as the horizon. It is such an exquisite sight and doubly wonderful for being a snippet of a view.
I stood there in the middle of the street, the cars all around me, and took a photo. They always think I am mad when I take a photo from that little domain I claim on the white line. The cars that is. The pedestrians don't notice. I was transfixed by the beauty of the sky and the office workers streaming past in a river of hurry to get home never noticed that the sun had painted another picture just for them. This was an exhibition for the few, right in the middle of the many. So it goes
That's what Vonnegut says. So it goes. I am reading Slaughterhouse Five yet again. Well, listening to it on my iPod. It is my private homage to his life, since he died just a few weeks ago. In the book he tells the story of Billy Pilgrim. It is meant to be about the fire bombing of Dresden in World War Two. He was there, Vonnegut that is, a prisoner of war, in a slaughterhouse called Dresden. But he says that he cannot think what else to say about the firebombing. I think he thinks that the incendiary bombs said all that needs to be said all on their own. So he talks about Billy who also fought in the war and then goes home and becomes wealthy and it is not until 1967 that anyone realizes that all the way back then, the trauma had made him go quietly mad.
That is until 1967 when he decided to tell a radio station that he has become unstuck from time and that one night in a microsecond before his daughters wedding he spent several years with aliens in a zoo and being mated with a porno movie star called Montana Wildhack. So it goes.
His daughter Barbara was aghast. Aghast not that her father had gone mad, or that he had had to endure the horrors of war, but that he was embarrassing her. So it goes.
I read quite a bit of the book as I went about my business purchasing supplies for tomorrows workshop. I discovered a lot of things. I have read Slaughterhouse Five before. Everybody has, it is one of those books that is respected and so everyone claims to have read it, but Slaughterhouse Five is also a powerful and interesting book, so not only do people say they have read it, they usually have. Me, I read it about three times.
I was much younger then. It seems I was probably quite a bit stupider too. Because (as is often the case when I reread things at this age) I am discovering depths and subtleties that I never noticed the other times. Maybe I did notice, but didn't think it was important so I forgot them straight away.
That's the problem with extreme youth, the extremely youthful are in such a hurry they don't pause to notice so many little things. Like sunsets down a street. Or nuances in the way a character says something, or is introduced. Or why they are there in the first place.
Now I am still a youth, but a little less extremely youthful than before, and discovering that a book that I should know very well is able to surprise me yet again. Or maybe, it's just that it is a good book, and that is why I can rediscover afresh within its pages another aspect that I hadn't considered before. And so it goes.
Tonight I could relate to Billy Pilgrim. I think at times like sunsets or other things of great beauty I too can feel a little unstuck from time. Of course unlike Billy I don't think I have been carried off to Tralfamidor by beings who hold their eyes in their hands. At least I don't think I have been.
But there is something that Billy does that I do do. Cry every so often, usually with dry tears. I get it in artworks, especially books or movies or television. I got it tonight. On an episode of Startrek: Enterprise one of the officers is trying to compose a letter to the parents of a crew member who has just died. The portrayal was very powerful and went through stages of denial and anger and rejection and acceptance, and when he came to terms with it, and started to really write as from his heart what he felt about this person I felt the tears welling up and the sensation was of the tears flooding my eyes, but really there was not that much water there, just the sensation. Big boys don't cry after all.
I wondered how I would deal with a real life situation of being in a place like Dresden in the war, and maybe having to tell someone about their somebody and share their last moments because it needed to be done.
I think I might become really unstuck in time too, and maybe even go to Tralfamidor and be in a zoo.
Everything would be different from then on, even sunsets. Later when I was downloading the photographs I was struck by how the colors in the cloud looked like they could be reflecting the fires of a burning Dresden. Even the mauvey greys looked like smoke rising from the city. Yes the cloud was still gorgeous, but somehow Vonnegut had managed to paint a few extra layers in there that I didn't notice the first time. So it goes.
A little after midnight I was walking through Hyde Park. I had been buying supplies at Woolworths at Town Hall. I saw a possum on the grass. It was just watching me a short distance away, so I put my groceries down to try and get a photograph.
The possum immediately went over to my bags. It had evidently smelled the pears and apples in my groceries. I said, as gently as I could "no, no." and got a pear out and put it on the ground. The possum came over and started to eat the pear while I watched.
Just 220 years ago this was a swamp where we were. Brushtail possums were plentiful. Now the swamp is Hyde Park, named by settlers homesick for a small island half a world away. There are buildings up to 80 stories high now just metres away from the park. Thousands of people are living in apartment blocks that reach into the sky. More than four and a half million people live in the suburbs beyond.
Yet here in the very center of this great city, the possums thrive. Whenever I walk through Hyde Park late at night they are there in the trees, or on the grass. I always speak softly to them and try to honor their ability to adapt. It is not often that I have food suitable for them to eat. Tonight, the juicy pear seemed to be appreciated, and I could spare it. Some animals eat just a few bites from fruit and then go on to find another. This little possum, once he had it in his paws, ate it all with dainty little bites, and with each bite would look up at me while it chewed.
It is hard to tell what it might have been thinking. I had the feeling, however, that it had the sure and confident thoughts of a being who was the true ruler of the land, who was patiently allowing us to collaborate in inhabiting it. We, after all, have our uses, we eliminated the dingos from the area, and some of us bring the occasional pear, or apple, or orange. I feel it is like paying a little rent for being here to the true landlord.
My love affair with the effects of light in the sky continues, but not too secretly. I cannot help it, the sublime beauty is something I can never ignore, my soul is tuned to appreciate the very special magic that inhabits my universe. Love is blind, they say, yet I cannot stop myself from opening my eyes, and every time I look, I fall in love just that little bit more. To live is to love. Here is my lover, the skies of Kings Cross that caress me with different colors every day.
It started at 10 oclock this morning, Vesna was the first to arrive to start working through her ideas. She sorted ideas with words, pages of words, and then started putting yellow paint on, two figures started to emerge. Iain struggled wit a portrait but gradually refined the shapes until he was more pleased. He returned in the evening to draw the model. George was the picture of intensity, the Greek warrior doing battle with the enemies of perfection. Linda's passion filled the room yet again, her hand moving rapidly, getting a lot down in a short time. Her images are gentle and sensuous.
When you see the passion in the eyes of those behind the easels it is a wonderful sight. When the model is posing they get an intense look and let themselves go to the music and the beauty of the models pose. Linda we welcomed back tonight after a long absence. She has eyes the color of far away skies and the studio feels just right when she is working. Mel moves like a cat stalking the perfect artwork, intent on the capture above all else. Andrew inspires us all with his infectious celebration of having discovered a passion that takes him on unexpected journeys. Ashley has fire in her soul and draws like each drawing is a lover she is caressing. Pablo is full of brooding artistry and hidden depths. Ingrid draws like Beethoven writing music, sensitive and powerful in her vision, quick to feel things. These are the artist's behind the easels, and this is their work.
In Forbes Street SCEGGS (which is a private girls school) has a new arts/music building next to old St Peters Church. Sometimes when I walk by I see the girls through the window, instuments in hand hard at work making music. Little do they know that on that very spot many years ago a mad artist made music in a very unusual way. His name was Peter and I often wonder what he is doing these days and where he went.
Back in the 1970's a little old brick terrace house stood where the SCEGGS music room is now, and it was in a state of continual re-invention by Peter. He had removed the floors so that walking in off the street it was a cavernous 2 story space with just the outside walls left and from the street one had to step down to the bedrock which once was under the house, but, by then, was his floor.
Leaning against the wall to the left as you entered there was the steel strings from the interior of a piano. These Peter would play with the back of a spoon. I still remember the sound that made. It felt like being in a magic garden full of wondous things to be at his place.
The exterior of the house was Peter's artwork. He continually painted it. One day it would be spaceships in the sky, then a forest would appear. All the windows had been removed and replaced with objects like a car windscreen. It was colorful and marvellous and I loved seeing it, but now it only exists as fragments in my memory.
So whenever I walk past that part of the street and see the girls making their music in their brand new building with their well dressed teacher I cannot help but contrast the sight with that zany music I heard all those years ago and the mad artist who was making it, and wonder, whatever happened to Peter?
As day turns to night the transitions of color are fleeting but wondrous to follow. As touches of yellow and mauve and dusky rose move with the clouds it is necessary to move from street to street, and like a Chinese garden, every 
place reveals a new paradise for the eyes.
Dawn brings its own joy of changing light, but it is the transition into night rather than the 
new day that really excites me. Perhaps it is just that I am so much a creature of the night and love the lights of the new evening so much that this is my favorite time. Perhaps it is just that the richness of color is so entertaining in the new surprises it has each day. Always different, so often sensational.
If, as an artist, my only purpose lay in recording this extraordinary poetry of the sky in the evening, then I would have a full and wonderful career to enjoy. There is so much inspiration in the changes of light to inspire the soul forever more.
These few photos chart the changes from the first fire spreading through the clouds to 
that dark green curtain that, like Indigo, is not really a color, but is a transition between colors right at the moment when it is neither one nor the other. And Then the street lights and the moon take the stage. This, then, is an evening in Darlinghurst.
I had to go to Kinko's to pick up some paper tonight. On the way back I took photos of flowers in Hyde Park and Sandringham Gardens. 
There is something extra special 
about the flowers that choose to bloom in the harshness of winter air. The air is so cold that it feels like we are in a giant refrigerator. It has been snowing in the high country and although the harbor keeps Kings Cross and the city itself frost free, further away parts 
have felt frost and the air here feels not far from freezing. Yet despite this, There are garden beds with masses of yellow Marigolds, and violet and white Pansy's 
both big and small.
There is a corner of Hyde Park with a circular fountain and surrounding formal gardens in circular terraces and beds laid with geometric beds separated by little formal box rows. 
It is called Sandringham Gardens and was made in 1954 to commemorate the two Georges - King George V and King George VI, both well loved according to the plaque by the beautiful ceremonial gates. It is a peaceful place for contemplation and continual beauty as the seasons bring new flowers all year round.
The day started with painting and then in the evening the model arrived for life drawing class and sketch club. Being the first day of a new term we started by 
talking about aspirations for this term. Then it was time for the model to pose, the paper fresh on the easels, the passion thick within the room. Then there were the first 
marks, the first lines, the first patches of tone and within seconds the hands 
were dancing on the paper, the eye quick from model to drawing, 
and the piles of new drawings started to grow. The artists were back at work.
Welcome back to Iain, Irena, and Vee after many adventures. Vee was in New York for a conference regarding her stage production called Mammapaloosa, then a couple of days in Paris to rendezvous with Irena who had been there six months 
already, painting, and getting herself on French radio. Iain meanwhile had been doing life changing things over in Balmain, and has a smile on his face due to a new Dutch girlfriend. The world is getting more international by the minute. Here they are back in the studio all starting new paintings.
A new term for Sketch Club. A cold night yet the artist's inspiration poses. Pure and essential beauty. The gentle sound of the rubbing of the ink stick on the stone slab mingles almost imperceptably with the music. An almost inaudible movement of brush from water to ink. The brush raises, poised to follow the eye 
and the heart.
It touches the paper. The artist is drawing again. The bohemian reason for life is in 
the air.
Beauty and appreciation are celebrated. The studio comes to life.
It was a very special evening on Saturday evening. Seonha, with Meagan, Sarah, and all her very special friends found the warmth and music and food and wine in the artist's garret for a fun way to celebrate her hens night. I love to see people really enjoying themselves. Here are my photos from the event.
It amazes me how so many people do not see beauty in the city. Are they not seeing what I see? Not just beauty, but natural beauty, immense, and laid out like a gigantic artwork across the sky. When you grow up in the country, you learn to 
look into the sky, learn the habits of the clouds, watch the chaging face of the sky, seek its moods for clues to tomorrow.
The joy of the city is that the sky does not go away. Just as in the country the sky is so different to the hills, so in the city the sky contrasts with the buildings and puts 
the city into perspective as something insignificant compared to the power of a world that can redraw an entire sky in just a few minutes, and take such a small number of materials, just sky and clouds, and every 
day create a new artwork that is different from every other sky I have ever seen.
Here I am, able to look up and be amazed constantly. I love the little touches of color here and there, the mixing of yellows and pinks with dusky mauves and soft greys. The gentle changes in structure, the transience of 
substance, the moodiness - above all, the moodiness.
Last night I went swimming again, the first time since May. It was so difficult forcing myself to the pool. It is about 10 minutes walk down William Street. It doesn't matter that it is a heated pool, the weather was wet and freezing. The whole psyche rebels at the thought of going swimming in that kind of weather.
I was surprised by how many people were there at the pool, it seemed just as busy as the middle of summer. Obviously they don't suffer the same struggles I do to get there. I suspect they mostly enjoy the process, at least those I talk to seem to. I, on the other hand simply never enjoy exercise at any time. I hate the time away from my work, I get bored moving through the water, and I intensely dislike the feeling of exertion and the feeling of muscular tiredness afterwards. Having said that i need to exercise, and swimming is the form of exercise I least detest. At least I don't have that horrible sweatiness to deal with.
I need to get back to swimming twice a week. I had allowed myself a break from swimming in order to get more work done. I hate that exercise takes away from working time. And afterwards I know I am not as efficioent in the mind as I normally am due to physical tiredness. I know people think I am odd, but I love working, and for something to take me away from that I must think it is very important indeed.
Afterwards I made a dinner for me and Pablo of salad. Salad is another thing I do not enjoy, except when i make the special dressing my mother made when I was a kid. It is really simple, but it is the only thing that can make a salad taste great. It is 2/3 fresh cream, 1/3 condensed milk, add pepper, and then brown vinegar to taste (around 2 teaspoons full for 300 ml of cream).
While we ate I was also making some caramel. It is an old country thing as well. Puncture a can of condensed milk, put it in boiling water then boil for a couple of hours. The milk gradually turns into a solid brown mass of pure caramel. It is a treat I make once in ten years or so. I made it once when I was 17 and sharing in a flat in Bundaberg. I forgot to check the water level, and it boiled dry. The can exploded and half caramelised milk was over the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. What a mess. It took ages to clean up. Now it is just a funny story to tell Pablo. I still remember the sound of the can going off, lucky no one was in the room at the time.
Cecilia Kwan had her hens night party here in the studio and while they all said they can't draw, they drew wonderfully well. I loved their company and their enthusiasm for life as well as art.
Today is the 8th here in Sydney, but in Kansas City it is the 7th of July 2007, exactly 100 years after the birth of writer Robert Anson Heinlein. When he died of emphysema in 1988 I had one of those terrible moments. Besides feeling that horrible sympathy with his personal loss of life, I felt a loss in mine, and a feeling of neglect. For many years I had intended to write to him with a thank you for all he had (unknowingly) done for me. Then all of a sudden there was no possible way to thank him except in my heart.
Robert Heinlein was a very controversial author for many people but for me he was simply formative at an important time in my life. I must have been only 8 or 9 years old when I first read "Time For The Stars". Forever more I dreamed of being out there in space, a mixture of scientist and artist.
More importantly for me than dreams of being in a space ship, it was in Heinlein that I discovered my ideal of the strong and independent woman. She invariably had deep understandings of life and the unverse, a sensibility that men struggled to keep up with. For a boy on a country farm this was revolutionary thinking. "Space Family Stone" represented my boyhood ideals well, but his adult books like "Stranger In A Strange Land", and "Friday" were important as I worked out my personal journey in youth. I adored Friday and despised the publishing houses. "Friday" had a hero called Friday. Friday was like a science fiction James Bond. Heinlein describes this exciting figure with fast moving action. He allows us to like Friday and allows our prejudices to imagine the character. It is only when substantially into the book that you discover that Friday is a woman. Then much further into the book we discover that she is black. Heinlein could challenge prejudices and assumptions and he had several black female heroes in his books. His publishers, however studiously ignored the fact, and Friday, in cover art, was always white. Thats why I despised them.
I always loved the way Robert Heinlein thought outside the square. He never followed convention in anything. It is amazing how much convention is followed by most of those who consider themselves unconventional. If you are going to be left wing then there are certain things that you will always ascribe to. Same for those who are right wing. Heinlein, however invented his own path that was confusing for observors. "Stranger In A Strange Land" appeared to be anti war. "Starship Troopers" is claimed by others to be sympathetic to militarism. His philosophy, however, was always impossible to pigeon hole in neat categories like that. What he meant to me was a questioning of all conventional social ideas, a huge respect and love for women, a dislike of prejudices, and a love of individualism. Heinlein did things his own way so much that he constantly invented new words, several of them have entered the Oxford English Dictionary, like the verb grok (an internal understanding especially used in the computer world) and waldo (the name for mechanical arms that manipulate hazardous materials remotely).
My favorites of his story's are probably "By His Bootstraps", "Methuselah's Children", "The Man Who Sold The Moon", and "Friday". "Stranger In A Strange Land", however, while not my favorite, was one of those books that (along side books such as "The Catcher In The Rye" and "On The Road") was transformative for me as a young man. Thats why, I really should have written a thank you letter to Heinlein when I still had a chance.
I must be an innocent. I always thought of Porky's as just a low class sex toys and porno shop. A fire this morning showed it is quite a bit more than that and it has far more patrons than I would have expected. News reports say about a hundred patrons were evacuated due to a fire. Porky's is described variously as a night club, strip club, and a brothel. The fire was contained to just one room, although smoke damage was more extensive. The fire started at 4:25 am in a bedroom.
It appears there are suspicians that the fire might have been deliberately lit as the police are reported as saying it is "suspicious". I wonder if, in an age of smoking restrictions, a fire started by a cigarette in a bed would now fit the definition of a suspicious fire?
Two people are in hospital being treated for smoke inhalation.
Last night in the dark in Forbes Street I discovered a little treasure. Despite the cold, my little magic mulberry tree had opened a first leaf. There were two of them, tiny and fresh, about the size of a five cent coin. I noticed the hint of something catching the dim street light above my head and drew the branch down low enough for me to run my finger tips over the softness of the new born leaf. It is very eager to come to life this special little mulberry.
It shouldn't even be here. I discovered it many, many years ago. It grows in a tiny space between two buildings and a few scraggly thin branches weep over an old wooden fence. On the other side of the fence is such a small dark space, that its only real life is in those few fingers that escape the confines. Over the years the property owners have tried to cut it down, but each time it manages to extend its tendrills over the fence once more and then suddenly produce a surprising mass of leaves. Later in the year it will fruit and I will have a taste of two or three delicious mulberries. I have the feeling as I eat them each year that the fruit is somehow just for me, as if the tree and I are having a clandestine affair in the street. it is that kind of special treat that has grown a life inside me beyond the fruit itself. It is as if when I am passing there, I can hear a whisper... "have you forgotten me that it took so long? I have been waiting, all alone, just for you."
One day, perhaps, I will see someone else enjoying a mulberry there in the street and I will wonder what sort of relationship they are having. Meanwhile, however, I prefer to believe that the mulberries were always just for me.
Violetta has been doing my hair for most of the last 10 years. She is a very special human being whom I would regard as a friend rather than just the person who does my hair. She works her magic creating the sort of haircut that suits me. Others have done my hair, but I have never been entirely satisfied, but Violetta always manages to get it just right.
She comes from Bulgaria, which is a long way away. She often talks about her mum who is so far away yet so close to her heart. The last couple of years she has gone for long visits with her mum. I think she misses her.
I think too that while she enjoys styling hair, underneath it all she secretly wishes to be an artist and poet living the bohemian life. Perhaps that is why she works in Kings Cross, because here she finds the kindred spirits who help nourish her soul.
Today the USS Kitty Hawk returned to Sydney Harbor. Naturally she tied up at the Garden Island navy base which is a 5 minute walk down the road. We are fortunate that Woolloomooloo Bay has such deep water that the biggest ships in the world can dock just a few steps from our public streets. I took these photographs from Embarkation Park. It is part of why I love Kings Cross so much - that so much that is different and exciting is just a few minutes walk away.
I think aircraft carriers are very beautiful pieces of engineering where the beauty grows out of the pure efficiency of function. Like large bridges or large aircraft the laws of physics take precedence over compromise and the result is by default beautiful.
There is also the kind of impression of beauty that grows out of the human ability to be awed by immense structures whether they be mountains or huge ships. I love being in a big jet when it is taking off just for the sensation of the power of those engines to create speed and then the physics of pressure 
differentials on the wings lifts that great weight into the sky. I get that same feeling from a great ship like this, its immensity, the power of its engines, and the city-like functioning of its crew, 5,000 souls working together like a purposeful machine. That is just as much beauty as the lines in a hull.
Docked at the wharf great doors open that expose the hangars in the bowels of the ship. I have been inside there on an open day when the ship was in port a few years ago. The feeling in that immense space is of something from another world.
It is good to see so many sailors in the Cross tonight. 4 more ships were in port - cruisers and assault ships. It is a lot of sailors. Kings Cross has been hosting visiting sailors for 150 years. It always has a good feeling when a ship is in. Judging from the smiles on happy sailors it seems the feeling is mutual.
I had been busy writing about local Aboriginal history but I noticed it was getting late and I wanted to go see the visiting US aircraft carrier before my haircut appointment. 
As I walked up William Street and down Victoria mother nature decided to show me who is the best artist in existence. Always our pale interpretive efforts are just relections of a larger beauty that is the natural world in all its glory. 
Sure, some man made things can be beautiful, just look at that row of buildings across downtown Sydney. But mother nature is 
able to wrap it all in gorgeous mauves and salmony pinks and then throw the palette across the sky. All while changing every detail in the twinkling of an eye. Every day I am in awe of the beauty that I see. This is my small impression.
I took Rosemary on a walk around the places where the Aborigines lived and revealed to her the way the city has covered the past as much as it can yet the traces are still visible for those who know what to look for.
The first photo is of the road outside the Kings Cross fire station at the intersection of Victoria Street and Craigend Street. This is where the main camp site for the Eora people was when the first settlers arrived in 1788. Without realizing it, Captain Phillip chose as his place to settle the same place that the Aboriginal inhabitants chose as the center of their world, and for very similar reasons - the abundant fresh water, and a surrounding landscape that had a great variety of natural resources.
We went next to Hyde Park. The photo shows the monument to Captain Cook. When he went by here in 1770 this beautiful park was a swamp and valuable food resouce for the Aboriginal people. It was the source of both the Tank Stream and the stream that flowed through East Sydney. 
That stream is long gone, perhaps it still exists in a pipe below the ground, but the evidence for it does still exist at ground level, especially at Stream Street which meanders along the original creek bed. It is not a pretty street as you can see in the photo, but the buildings each side give me an impression of the tall trees that would have been here once like walls along the stream.
