Cher, Madonna, Prince, Rihanna. Some names are prime candidates for singular expression these days. Others, well, probably not so much, although in another time perhaps Edith, Cuthbert, Cecil and Joan were just as recognisable.
What is it about the famous four, Cher, Prince and the rest? A Few Blinks More
Why did she do it? Because she could. Cyndi Lauper, delayed with hundreds of other passengers at a Buenes Aires airport, took things, including the PA system, into her own hands, and did what she does best: she captured everyone with her decisive moment and defused frustration, anger, and impatience with a song. And not just any song, but one of the best. Enjoy.
© VernLaw Photography 2010
Senator Bob Brown, leader of the Greens in Australia, recently appeared on ABC TV’s Art Nation and spoke about his love of photography and of capturing decisive moments in history and nature.
You can view the segment by going to the following ABC page – it’s only about 5 minutes long, and shows some beautiful views of the Tasmanian wilderness:
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3155670.htm
This is one of the ways in which we can participate in capturing decisive moments in our lives and create meaning where otherwise only fleeting glimpses would remain in our memories. As you can see from Bob Brown’s uplifting experiences, you don’t have to be an expert to enjoy and gain immeasurable benefits from creating images.
How can you do this? Simply take your camera with you wherever you go and be ready to greet your decisive moments. This was French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s approach for decades – he always carried his little Leica with him and was ever-ready for decisive moments. (See my about page for more information on Henri Cartier-Bresson and his use of the phrase ‘the decisive moment’ to encapsulate his photographic ideology). Nowadays, digital cameras are compact and easy to carry, and I have to admit that, in honour of Henri, I recently purchased a Leica digital camera in the form of a Panasonic Lumix ZS5 and I love it. No, this isn’t an affiliate promo – I just love the camera, and I know you’ll find the right one for you.
Start today – enjoy a decisive moment and capture it as well.
© VernLaw Photography
Today in the Dilly Bag, a tip for decluttering that can actually be fun. I call it DBS – Decluttering By Stealth.
There are many ways to run away from yourself, and Angry Birds is just one of them. But you can also use Angry Birds as a counterbalance, kind of like making up for lost time. Let’s see how.
In 1990, Kenneth Branagh, the British actor, published his autobiography, titled Beginning. At the time, he endured quite a bit of ridicule because of his age. He was 30 when the book was published.
What worthy things did he have to say at such a tender age, critics asked? How could anyone be so arrogant as to publish an autobiography, a memoir of any kind, before they were at least 70, or older?
He was a toddler, a baby, an infant, for heaven’s sake. Go away and grow up, they said. Get some experience, squirt, get some age on you, get rid of the bum fluff, and then come and tell us a few things. 30? Get real.
Recently, here in 2011, an announcement was made that Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah, the former Governor of the state of Alaska in the US, would be publishing her memoir later this year. Its title is yet to be made public. Bristol is 20.
There are a few things Bristol could write home about, if she wasn’t already at home. She had a baby at 18, she’s been engaged to the same fellow twice, she came third on a TV show called Dancing With the Stars, her mother is a controversial political figure in America.
Twenty-one years after little Ken published his memoir, it’s par for the course to see ‘infants’ as it were, foetuses, some might say, publishing their contributions to the genre based on little more than dollops of fame and/or notoriety.
The year before he published, Kenneth had directed and starred in the film, Henry V, which also earned him Oscar nominations for directing and acting. Perhaps he felt the time was financially right to flog a book about himself.
Because it’s all about commerce, but you know that. Publishers don’t invest unless they’re almost entirely certain of a positive return. Justin Bieber is 16, and has already published his autobiography, First Step 2 Forever, and Miley Cyrus, 18, is the author of Miles to Go.
They’ve had the good grace, like Kenneth, to emphasise in their titles the fact that they’re just starting out. And they have, and will, sell trunkloads and truckloads of their instant memoirs because they’re celebrities for now, and their fans are easy marks.
Whether or not they’ll write follow-ups when they’re 70, or 25, is anyone’s guess. In a year or two, they could be simply formerly fabulous as the next generation moves in and dusts off the microphones and dance floors and cranks up the gossip mills.
So, my question to you, grasshoppers, is this: What’s stopping you from creating your own instant memoir? You can read and write, you’ve probably been around the paddock a few more times than Justin and Miley and Bristol, even Kenneth. You’ve got some wisdom and insight to fall back on, and you know and remember that Memoir = Life = Now. They certainly know it.
And even if you haven’t been around for long, even if you’re 16, or 18, or 20, you’re living your life here on the third rock, too, only it isn’t happening in a fish bowl, luckily for you.
Pursue the moment, and see where it leads you.
The next time you get that feeling that you need to remember this moment, this hour, this day, grab your writing implements, make a cuppa, burn some toast, and go with the flow. Get it down. Justin, Miley, Bristol, and Kenneth (now 51) are cheering you on.
This post brought to you by an experienced letterbox
I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. It was 5.15, the sky was overcast, the air humid. I was sure I could smell a shower on the way and, contrary to the song lyric, I do not like walking in the rain, although I have been known to wish on the odd star in the Southern Cross Constellation.
I really wanted to stay in the bed, the lovely, lovely bed. The fan was blowing a cool breeze through the room, the sheets were soft and comforting. Dotty the Fanatical Cat had yet to perform her early morning dance of the seven-varieties-of-Dine-Feast-this-minute on my right shoulder.
So, I’d almost made the decision to walk tonight, after the sun sets – be skin care aware, grasshoppers – and then, something happened. I got up.
Call it motivation, call it respect for delayed gratification, call it fear of a narrowing left ventricle. I got up and off we went. But some days, I don’t make it. Some days I sign off, and I almost always regret it.
A famous athlete, Herb Elliott, said that the hardest part of training is getting out of bed every morning. The trick is in realising that most of us need just a little burst of extra grunt in order to rouse ourselves, but once we’re up, we’re up. The logic of the little burst applies to so many things in life.
Beginning, starting, having a go, being there, showing up. Waking up. Getting up.
Momentum. The little burst.
Those who show up get the prizes, whatever they may be: money and jobs, sure, but consider, too, satisfaction, consider the comfort of knowing you’ve done the thing you wanted to do but didn’t think you could. Consider the work, the art, as Seth Godin describes it, that will win you new life directions and career options.
Consider capturing the memoir moment.
Those who wake up and get up into their lives, those who actively choose to sign on to their lives, enjoy much better odds of, first of all, continuing and then, of finishing what they’ve begun.
It has to do with focus, mindful focus, as you create your memoir, your art, and your legacy now, and now, and now.
But ultimately, it’s your choice. Perhaps you’ll cruise past the SIGN ON banner the first few times around the paddock. Then, you might decide to take a look at who else is signing on, so you roll up at the appointed hour and mill about in the background, near the car for a quick getaway, among a handy stand of shady trees, so you’re almost invisible.
You pretend you’re just an onlooker, doing a bit of gardening – even though you hate gardening – checking out the last dandelion. Not that anyone’s asking. They’re all too busy queuing to sign on. Eventually, you think, and this is where what you think comes into its own – thoughts dictate actions and feelings – you think, What the hell, what harm can it do? With any luck that’s what you decide, because as some famous person’s humble father once said, You only regret what you don’t do, Jennifer.
Fear is often the biggest obstacle to signing on, even in the morning when all you need to do is pull yourself up and pivot sideways to greet the wonderful world of the vertical mammal. Ignore fear, try it once, and let the little burst guide your way.
Are we going to sign on or sign off? Now? Or now? How does now look?
Let’s do it, grasshoppers.
Remember: Memoir = Life = Now
Here in unusually sunny, muddy Queensland – La Nina has taken a terrible toll on our sun-filled-days-per-year boasting – thousands of people have been decluttering their lives.
Unfortunately, the decluttering hasn’t been voluntary but essential and unavoidable. Thousands of homes were inundated by our recent floods, and the cleanup has resulted in tips and landfills being inundated in turn many times over by council and volunteer cleanup squads.
The mantra, Let it go, Let it go, Let it go, is heard first as a plaintive cry and gradually builds to a call to arms across my beautiful city, Brisbane, as every household item you can imagine gets the heave-ho to the footpath.
Most of the time, we get to decide when we declutter and what goes out the door. But in the mess of mud and filth that the river water left behind, there have been few choices available.
So I’m wondering, Can having no choice be a good thing, sometimes?
There’s that old joke about the T-Model Ford: You can have any colour as long as it’s black.
In the case of these wretched floods, residents can have any style of interior decoration they like, as long as it’s an empty house. Some don’t even have the ‘luxury’ of an empty house. Their ‘choice’ is no house at all as some homes have been described as unliveable and worthy only of demolition.
Imagine, then, if you were in a position where you had to start all over from scratch, what, after securing basic shelter, a roof over your head, would be your first meaningful purchase?
Leave aside the usual necessities like basic clothing, footwear and toiletries, like furniture and kitchen goods and electrical appliances to heat the beans and wash the T-shirts with bean sauce on them, and a TV in front of which to sit and eat the beans and spill the sauce. Oh, and an internet connection to go with the new PC.
[A sidebar question: Do you think the internet has become indispensible for most people in countries where communications technology is advanced and available to most of those who want it and can afford the required investment in a PC and connection? I know of people who’ve gone offline in protest at the gathering momentum of the online world. I don’t know what they’re hoping to achieve with a complete withdrawal – a complete rest? more privacy? – but I wish them well. Like the Buddha, I prefer the middle way – moderation in all things – though I don’t often achieve it, but that’s why goals can be handy.]
So, what would you buy, grasshopper?
Let’s make it a little easier – your first three purchases – what would they be?
Of course, I’m relying on you to have already initiated a decluttering policy from Day 1 with your necessities. You don’t have to be entirely like writer, Margaret Atwood’s mother, who apparently believed that two dresses were plenty for her girl: one on and one in the wash. Perhaps a little more leeway is desirable. Let’s not get too deeply into Lenten sacrifice.
I’ve been wondering what I would choose once I got back to the place where I had a choice once more, and it took a while for the grey cells to get moving, but I’m almost certain that these are the three: a camera, a day book, and a pen.
With these three items, I could create my world anew with visual and textual instant memoir. And I’d get very busy remembering, too, describing the photos and documents I’d lost as the memories returned and beckoned for attention. This would be my new foundation.
What’s yours?
Remember: Memoir = Life = Now
This post brought to you by an unassuming letterbox
Dear Dr MD
Can you please tell me which one of these is the most useless?
(a) War
(b) Fancy cookery shows
(c) A hip-pocket in a singlet
(d) An ashtray on a motorbike
Many thanks
Finbar
Dear Finbar
First of all, this is clearly a trick question. Plus, it lacks the most important option: an (e) all of the above. For (e) is the correct answer, my dear, with some qualifications, as always.
As George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others. Or words to that effect. War is, as we all know, both useless and tragic. But many thousands of memoirs have been written about wars – perhaps for those very reasons of uselessness and tragedy – by soldiers, foreign correspondents, politicians, and victims, to name a few.
If I were you, I’d stick with memoirs by the correspondents: they usually have fewer biases and are more likely to present a picture that doesn’t demonise The Other. Also, war victims’ memoirs, while cathartic and moving, can be quite traumatic and overwhelming. Perhaps you don’t feel that you want to invite such sadness into your life. It’s your choice, of course.
You may, however, actually enjoy ABC correspondent, Eric Campbell’s account of his time in several weird, wonderful and dangerous places, some of them at war, on the brink of it, or trying to clean up after it. It’s called Absurdistan, for reasons that become very clear very early on.
Now, as to fancy cookery shows, Fin – may I call you Fin – they, too, though frequently entertaining, are quite useless, and wasteful, but in a different way from war. At least as you eat your way to a solidified left ventricle while imitating your favourite TV chefs in the comfort of your designer kitchen, you may enjoy a few mouthfuls of delicious creamy pasta rather than a faceful of shrapnel before you drop off for the longest sleep of all.
You’d be better off, though, eating more steamed vegies, fewer steaks, and drinking plenty of black tea with your breakfast oats.
Famous cooks, by the way, write their memoirs as cookery books whether they realise it or not. Check out Kylie Kwong, Jamie Oliver, and the Two Fat Ladies. This is a far more useful pursuit, as these texts often contain beautiful, and droolworthy shots of dishes that don’t always require three ovens and 48 separate processes to achieve.
Indeed, Fin, why not create your own cookbook memoir by compiling your own, or your family’s favourite dishes in one handy volume? Add comments about why you love each dish, and when you prefer to eat or serve it, and to whom.
Incorporate some photos of the dishes as they are created, and then when they’re served on the plate. Don’t be shy about including in the photos whoever might be in the kitchen or dining-room with you at the time. Gather quotations from those satisfied diners, and place them in the sidebars of your recipe pages. Note the dates and times at which the comments were made, and the ages of those quoted.
Develop your cookbook as a history of your tribe’s and even your culture’s changing culinary tastes.
You’ll have a mindful and meaningful family heirloom to give to succeeding generations of grateful gourmands, and the youngest ones will see the timeline of their maturity as they grow from loathing to loving garlic, mushrooms, broccoli, and green beans (stir-fry, add a little stock and low-fat cream, and serve on rice, couscous, or noodles – brought to you by RBS: Recipes By Stealth).
Finally, Finnie baby, (c) and (d) are there to get us to (e) really, and because they remind me of my father, who was fond of a joke or two. So they function for me as micro memoirs: memoirs you can write in a sentence or two, and which then open entire worlds of memory to you about loved ones, events, and places.
As useless as a hip-pocket in a singlet, darl, Dad would explain as we’d watch yet another politician bloviating on TV about the Vietnam war, oh so very long ago.
As useful as an ashtray on a motorbike, he’d say as we’d laugh over whether or not the latest K-Tel product came with steak knives, and wonder about its capacity to create radish roses.
So, Fin, Finnie, Finbar, dearest, why not write your own micro memoir now before you forget, and start that cookbook memoir with your next meal. A line or two, a soupcon of pepper, and you’re on your way, and that’s a very useful thing to be doing in a world undone by conflicts and confits.
Remember, Grasshoppers: Life = Memoir = Now
La Nina has come to visit and she’s outstayed her welcome here in formerly sunny-almost-every-day Queensland. Enough with the rain, enough with the floods, enough with the inland tsunami.
The dams are beyond fuller than full. Adults and children are dead or missing. Houses are wrecked and their occupants homeless. Enough.
What is it with this crazed climatic family? Before La N., El Nino hung around for years and years, kicking dust in our faces, spitting desiccated chips in our eyes, killing our native animals and livestock, burning off bushland, burning down houses, and burning out the light in so many people’s eyes all over Australia.
They’re like guests who come to holiday with you, this Nina, this Nino. They arrive smiling with promise and potential, and their baggage – and don’t they have so much of it – but, like glitter, twist ties, and repeats of Two and a Half Men, you just can’t get rid of them.
What can you do about power that’s way beyond the control of teeny-weeny humans?
The other day, our state Premier, Anna Bligh, stood up to be counted, after a long period of dilly-dallying and less than inspiring shenanigans from the government benches. She made a speech in which she called on everyone to remember who we are, and it bears repeating.
We are Queenslanders, she said. We’re the ones they breed tough north of the border. We’re the ones they knock down, and we get up again.
Strange to say, but a small marsupial must have been listening in at the window when Our Anna roused the citizens to get up again.
Meet Claudette, the sweetest little ring-tailed possum to grace our garden since – well, she’s the only one we’ve found so far. But you get the drift – see photo for adorability factor up to wazoo.
Claudette – her name appeared from nowhere on a breeze of idle thought – was abandoned, we think, by her mother. The pair may have been attacked, or frightened, or both, and in these circumstances, the baby – who usually travels on her mother’s back once she’s big enough to leave the pouch – gets shaken off as the mother goes into defensive mode and tries to save herself. Unfortunately, possums don’t always return to collect their possumettes.
Lola found Claudette in a palm frond, wide-eyed, alone, waiting. We waited, too, and watched, hoping for Claudette, senior, to return. By the afternoon, with butcher birds gathering above Claudette’s tiny head, ready to knock her off her perch and – let’s not go there – we stopped watching and took action.
Once we managed to retrieve her from the tree – courtesy of Lola’s magical marsupial manoeuvrings – and place her in a comfy container, she went instantly to sleep, probably a little dehydrated, and certainly exhausted by the effort to remain alert.
We phoned the local vet for some wildlife carers’ names, and found Lyndal, a possum expert and all-round decent human being. Lyndal put Claudette in a custom-made possum pouch – soft, bunny-rug fabric, just the right size for a 100 gram ring-tailed girl – so she could warm up and calm down sufficiently to be fed a special wildlife formula.
Lyndal phoned us later to let us know that Claudette was feeding and sleeping and doing all the things small furry beings do. She said Claudette is particularly loving and gentle and she feels confident that once she reaches 500 grams or so, she can go to a soft-release site – an enclosed aviary-style area. Here, other local carers – all of them volunteers like Lyndal – keep watch as possums like Claudette get used to natural surroundings again and meet other possums – they’re a community-minded bunch, the ring-tails, Lyndal tells us – before their full release into the open.
The moral of this everyday memoir? Take from it whatever feels good, and I’d like to think that Claudette hung on instinctively until she could make it – with a little help from her friends – to somewhere safer, somewhere loving.
Not everyone has been or will be as lucky as Claudette, but I have to say I’m very proud of all of our fellow citizens who’ve stood up to be counted as these terrible floods wreak havoc and tragedy.
In the end, what we have are the mindful moments that make up our lives and, if we’re lucky – and by now we surely know that nature is random, and careless – each other.
