G is for Good

”Good.” How many times a day do we say ”good” without really having given much (or any) thought to what other word might be better. I often replace "good" with "excellent" but only if it's warranted. Come to think of it, it may not be that we don't consider other words, but that we don't consider the answers enough - possibly because we don't think that folk who ask questions where our best response is ”good” are interested in a "real" answer, as in: How are you today? Good. As opposed to - ”Don't ask, I have a horrible night, my partner just left me, I’m having trouble with the bank, and if I have to listen to one more session about being a team player I am going to lose it”. How was dinner? Mmmmm ... good - not to be confused with sublime, excellent, amazing, or, at the other end of the spectrum, words fail me. Which is where ”good” probably is (good), in light of Mr Rabbit’s advice to Thumper: if you can't say anything nice, don't say nothing at all. Good.

F is for Friday

Friday - the last day of the working week. Never was it is as welcome as the very first week I worked and even though it is a few years back now, I can remember the absolute elation I felt walking home from the train station through Tempe Park knowing there would be no work tomorrow! It was like being let out for the school holidays - and even though it was only two days stretching before me this time, rather than weeks, it was glorious! I've only had that feeling once since and it wasn't at a particularly onerous job, at the end of a long week, or for any special reason - except that it was Friday and not in that TGIF way - although goodness knows there have been enough of those over the years! I'm not sure if it would be a good thing or a bad thing if it happened at the end of every week - there's certainly nothing wrong with looking forward to weekends but you'd have to hate being it a job where that was the only highlight ie not being there!

E is for Extenuating Circumstances

Extenuate: (often as extenuating adj.) lessen the seeming seriousness of (guilt or an offence) by reference to some mitigating factor.

It's a bit like that story about the man who kills his mother and his father and then pleads for clemency because he is now an orphan! The sentencing hearing of Sydney man Neal Richardson (convicted of murdering his lover before using a power saw to dismember her body) has heard that he suffers from traumatic recollections.

''He's off drugs now. He's sitting in jail with his life ahead of him,'' his barrister told the court, adding there was evidence Richardson felt ''contrition'' and ''remorse''.

After her death (which Richardson claimed happened when Ms Grant hit her head on a coffee table when they fell during an argument) at the house they shared in Malabar (a Sydney suburb), and believing that the police would think he had killed her (as she had been slated to give evidence against him on an assault charge) he disposed of her body on a NSW rural property.

Justice Lucy McCallum adjourned the matter for sentencing on May 11.

E is for Evidence

While I never saw Jerry Maguire (the movie) I can't help but think his "Show me the money!" was another way of saying "I'll believe you if you show me the evidence" ... but I have no proof of that - and there’s no-one immediately available that I can ask. Evidence makes up a huge part of our modern world - it's at the forefront in the cop show television genre - possibly too much so because people now have an unrealistic belief in forensic science and how well and quickly it can bring results! Or that evidence is best looked for by torch (a la CSI Miami) rather than turning on overhead lights. Evidence is there too in psychological research - although it's a little thin when studies are based on small, non-representative samples. This may be why they say hypotheses can never be proved - only supported. And what of religion - where people seek "evidence", proof, of the existence of their particular deity/God to bolster their faith. Would Jesus have been believed if he hadn't performed miracles such as bringing Lazarus back from the dead, curing the sick, feeding the hungry? Is there any way anyone would/could accept the existence of a being from another realm if they had no knowledge of it? Can folk believe in something for which we have no evidence? I guess the answer to that last one is Yes - especially since the property recovery of the 1990's seems to have resulted from people simply saying it was so!

D is for Demons

We saw a program the other evening which featured a segment on three teenage exorcists. They specialised in casting out demons and while the whole notion of these young things doing this was far-fetched, the segment did raise an interesting point. One of the young women exorcised during the segment said that she felt her demons had been cast out - and then went on to talk about her teen pregnancy, her abusive parents and other things which had troubled her and were now "gone". Hmmmm - that made some sense - thinking about demons not as supernatural beings that had invaded someone's body but as negative talk, experiences and criticism that had invaded a soul, built a nest there and started to fester and eat it away from the inside. And this isn't a new thought - although people in the past may not have viewed it exactly in those terms - because it isn't that long ago that people with a mental illness were thought to be "possessed". So what demons are each of us harbouring? What skeletons are in our closets, what secrets do we keep, things of which we are ashamed, things we prefer we hadn't said or done that we can't let go of, forgive ourselves, forget and move on?

[The devil is in the detail: isn't it amazing that we have a language in which a demon can be either a "cruel wicked and inhuman person", "an evil supernatural being" or "someone extremely diligent or skillful"? Me, I'm going with the Ancient Greek origin - δαίμων (god, goddess, divine power).] (Thanks WordNet.)

C is also for Conversation

Most of us take conversation and social interaction for granted. We fall into an easy interchange with others - passing the time of day, talking about the weather, avoiding taboo subjects like politics - and don't give it a second thought. For others it's a much more difficult proposition. They lack the basic skills of and for social interaction and find it difficult to acquire them - and it isn't easy - and harder still to find places and opportunities to practice. Lean forward and smile - try to connect with people - show them you care - these are the stepping stones to acquiring social skills: not really like ... but not totally unlike ... fake it till you make it. Now that's something to talk about.

C is for Change

To be honest, change isn't one of my favourite things ... unless it's coins, in which case it's welcome in bucket-loads. Real Change though, well, that's an entirely different matter. I am resistant to change. I realise this is perverse, given the only thing constant is change because change doesn't. But what's the alternative? A world without change? A world where we didn't need to adapt to new circumstances and conditions? A world where we can rely on everything being the same from day to day? Day in ... day out? That already sounds like a less interesting place especially if the lack of change extended to subjects, gears, tunes, clothes, lanes, jobs. Hmmm, could be time for a change ... of heart!

B is also for Bring Back the Ballad

They don't do ballads like they used to - not just the poems, but the songs as well. Music today is not about the words - let's face it, it's pretty hard to work out what they are - it's about the beat, and lots of it! Once upon a time, it used to be about harmony and melody. It used to be that you could put together a mix tape to share with your special someone to let them know how you felt - and the songs, filled with lots of E-flats and even more of the love tone, would spread the warm fuzzy feelings which symbolised how deep was your love. Now it's more likely to be head-banging rhythms and high-volume which is perfectly acceptable for dancing, especially as a precursor to mating, but it's not necessarily something which when next you hear it will brighten your smile and make your heart sing. Ah, Ballads ... (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning) how do I love thee? Let me count the ways ...

B is for Blog

It would be interesting to know how many blogs are alive and well out there on the internet and how many have slipped into disrepair through neglect or folk simply not having enough time to keep them current. Everyone (or is this a generalisation?) starts a blog with good intentions although no doubt for vastly different reasons. I'm not sure if blogging is about vanity or about people trying to find their voice - and then trying to have it heard ... although for some it may be enough that they have made the effort at all. These are probably not the folk who sign up to track their blog's statistics. Or is that something we all do - looking to see the number of hits on our sites, where they've come from and how folk have visited our blog instead of one of the other millions of blogs out there. Chance? Fate? Blog-hopping?

A is for Artist

It could also be for Ageing Artist. Last weekend we went to see Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons in concert at Jupiters Casino here on the Gold Coast. It was absolutely amazing - great staging, band, backing singers/dancers (that would be The Four Seasons) and, of course, Frankie Vallie himself - now in his late seventies. How amazing that someone would still be performing then - will we see Lady Gaga, Madonna and others of the current crop of artists performing when they're nearly 80? But back at the concert, within minutes - moments? - of the concert starting, the person I was with and I both had the same question - was Frankie Valli really singing or was he lip-syncing? Did it matter? As it turned out, we weren't the only ones who were wondering and during the course of the concert we came to believe that it was a mixture of both - for some he was actually performing with voice, and the rest of the time he was just performing - because unless you knew, except for a couple of small spots - you would never have picked it. Certainly, our being in the 5th row made it possible for us to watch his lips, and the screen, and to (we think, but were we wrong?) pick the difference. But it was a truly amazing performance - even if he wasn't actually singing, he was still "going through the motions" - and very well. Some singers use manual cues when they're trying to reach a certain note - it can be as subtle as a small movement of a finger - and he was doing all of that. But more than that he was taking us back to those "good old days" and it didn't really matter how he and The Four Seasons and the band were doing that ... as someone asked afterwards "Who said they haven't invented a time machine?". You just have to admire the dedication of someone who would be performing the same songs all these years later - because we know no-one really wants Frankie Valli to sing modern songs - he's there for the ballads - and even though he's sung them over and over again, he's still doing it and helping people tap into their memories! Bravo!

Role models

There was an interesting article by Andrew Jacobs in today's Sydney Morning Herald about the Chinese push to re-instill comrades with a sense of selflessness and industry by urging people to "Learn from Lei Feng" - a young man who was killed when a colleague reversed a vehicle into a telephone pole, sending it crashing down on him. Lei Feng was promoted to the status of National Hero by the Communist Party propaganda machine: Lei Feng, industrious, generous and irresistibly impish, China's most endearing soldier, the sort of fellow who would darn his comrades' socks and skip a meal so others might eat.

As Jabos writes: "In urging people to 'Learn from Lei Feng' a year after his death, then-leader Mao Zedong sought to imbue China's youth with a passion for self-sacrifice and patriotism — and perhaps distract them from the hunger pangs of famine that followed his disastrous effort to rapidly industrialize in the Great Leap Forward."

While these propaganda methods may have worked well "back then", today the Internet allows a forum for people to question the push - which they are doing although some of the comments are being deleted by censors.

Jacobs reports - and this was the interesting part which added to the suggestion that "government-sponsored role models strained credulity": previous party icons include Shi Chuanxiang, a happy-go-lucky "night soil" collector; Wang Yiqing, an electronics worker who assembled 5 million radio parts without a single mistake, and - wait for it - Iron Man Wang, who dog-paddled in a vat of cement when there was no machine to mix it!

Carrie ... the Musical

Just when you thought you had seen everything - here's something else to whet your appetite for theatre. Remember Carrie, Stephen King's story of a young, increasingly troubled teenager who is teased until she turns nasty, well, you can now see the Musical of the same name - until 22 April since it has extended its season. The following is an excerpt from The StephenKing.com Newsletter:

The newly reworked and fully re-imagined production of Carrie, produced by award-winning off-Broadway theater company MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, recently announced an extended run through April 22. The musical's original creators, composer Michael Gore, lyricist Dean Pitchford, and book writer Lawrence D. Cohen (who wrote the screenplay for the 1976 DePalma film version) have completely revised the their 1988 musical under the direction of Stafford Arima. Stars Broadway stalwart and Tony Award nominee Marin Mazzie as Margaret White, and a young actress named Molly Ranson who, by all accounts, is giving a star-making performance.

Not very clear - again or still?

Going through my wallet this afternoon (you do have to do it sometimes!), I came across a discount fuel voucher from one of the supermarkets. I checked the date and found it had expired - although it was fairly hard to read because the ink was fading fast on the thermal paper. Is this an additional service they offer that maybe didn't work as well as it might have? Self-fading fuel dockets ... they fade totally when they are out of date.

Not very clear

It depends on what you see as a positive - the headline on to day's Gold Coast Bulletin was: Vampire Killer Living on Coast. If you were afraid of these undead creatures of the night (unless you subscribe to the Twilight model) you might be pleased this was the case and you would see a "good news story". The intention though was not this. It is to let folk know that a woman who stabbed a man to death and then drank his blood has been released from prison and is now living amongst us. Is this a case of clarity sacrificed for brevity?  

Use it or lose it?

One thing I love about being on holidays is that there is more time for puzzle-play but it has been just a bit disappointing.  I obviously haven't been doing enough of it because one I love and am usually quite good at is now proving quite difficult and I have had to resort to using pen and paper to try to figure out the 9-letter word you can make from the jumble of letters.  Or to self: do more of them and regain lost sense of mastery (aka use it or lose it!)

Two new habits

According to a report I was reading this morning in Zite, two habits that people who are interested in self-improvement could take up this year are journalling (for recognizing, learning and remembering life's lessons) and reading books (because successful people do).  

Why is it so?

Have you ever wondered about how we adopt sayings and never actually question their origins or what they really mean? It struck me this morning that we use the term "Russian Roulette" but it seems to have very little to do with Russia - although Wikipedia suggests this is where the "game" originated - or Roulette - except perhaps (again as suggested by Wikipedia) the spinning action and the element of chance/risk involved. And who knew there were (at least) two variations - one where the two players take turns spinning the revolver's cylinder before firing. Chances are this would provide onlookers with better betting options by hopefully increasing the number of turns before one of the players did shoot themselves in the head! The other variation, where the cartridge is only spun once - means on a standard six-shooter, the game (and the players) would have a limited life. And if you were the second player and your opponent had survived three goes - would you pull the trigger? And if the punters had bet on which player would die - and they had bet on you/against you - would you be or feel compelled to pull the trigger. I would have said "who in their right mind would do it?" but then realised that, in my universe anyway, people in their right mind do not put loaded guns to their head and pull the trigger!

Contextual memory

I had forgotten I knew the word ... but as soon as I saw the white pencil under the chair at Zarraffas I thought "someone's dropped their chinagraph"- it's been a while since I even saw one - years ... decades - when I was doing my media degree and we used them for marking radio tape (goodness - that really is a very long time ago!) it is amazing how memory works though, isn't it - we can totally forget we know something until something like that happens. I wonder how much else is rattling around in my brain without me knowing about it?

Pioneer One

I have found a science fiction series on the web which is available free of charge but donations are welcome because it is funded from viewer contributions. It's called h and tells the story of a downed Russian spacecraft which has supposedly returned from Mars carrying a passenger - a young man born on Mars (the first Martian to set foot on earth? - although he hasn't actually yet because he's been confined to a hospital bed after being carried from the crash site) and sent back to Earth as the Martian colony runs out of resources. That's the gist of it anyway. It's billed to run three seasons - only one of which is currently available - and while it has been an interesting look into the creative team's vision it has proved a little difficult for those of us without a good memory for faces. Over the course of the production at least two (I think) of the main actors have changed - either totally - or dramatically (heh heh) changed their appearance. I know, I know ... go with the flow - and I am, and looking forward to the next episodes when they are posted.

Nature or nurture or neither?

Boy pleads guilty to killing with axedeclared the headline and I couldn't help wondering if this was about Ivan Milat's relative who took a teenage friend into the Belangalo State Forest (scene of murders for which Milat is currently serving prison time) and murdered him with an axe. The whole thing does raise the issue of nature or nurture - and that if either or both of these influenced the boy to violence.

Yesterday the teenager pleaded guilty in Campbelltown Children's Court to the murder on the night of November 20 last year. David Auchterlonie's grandmother, Sandra, told the Herald last night she was still trying to find any relief in the fact that ''the evil seed of Ivan Milat had finally pleaded guilty''.

Sydney Morning Herald