This is where I live...

Canberra : Enough space to walk, while enjoying one's maximum arm span.

Oh, you used h-u-m-o-u-r to l-i-g-h-t-e-n the mood.

This is about 9 years out of date, but it still makes me laugh out loud - he said, clearly still enjoying his own work and living off the golden syropy goodness of days long past.  I can remember watching this performance when we filmed it.  This guy wasn't so much acting, as channeling his marraige.  It was amazing.

I just don't think I'll ever get over you

Can a song be a break-up song and a love song at the time?  Words are printed here because, well, they're awesome.

This one, for David Gault.



I drink good coffee every morning
Comes from a place that's far away
And when I'm done I feel like talking
Without you here there is less to say

I don't want you thinking I'm unhappy
What is closer to the truth
That if I lived till I was 102
I just don't think I'll ever get over you

I'm no longer moved to drink strong whisky
'Cause I shook the hand of time and I knew
That if I lived till I could no longer climb my stairs
I just don't think I'll ever get over you

Your face it dances and it haunts me
Your laughter's still ringing in my ears
I still find pieces of your presence here
Even after all these years

But I don't want you thinking I don't get asked to dinner
'Cause I'm here to say that I sometimes do
Even though I may soon feel the touch of love
I just don't think I'll ever get over you

Bon Iver - Coming Down

When I listen to Bon Iver perform, I have the strong sense of being in the presence of genius.  When I watch him perform, that sense is confirmed. 

People get so lonely, but Love is the only one

Just heard this song on Guy Garvey's Finest Hour.  How did I go so long without ever running into this sweet and unassumingly truthful song?

For me, it captures the bittersweet experience of breaking up with someone so perfectly.  If love is the losing and finding of the self in the paradise of another, breaking up is, I believe, a mixture of a mourning for the loss of that paradise, and all that it presented itself to be, and an at first unfamiliar sense of excitement at the still far off prospect of hope that it might one day again be possible to lose and find yourself in the paradise of another again.

What am I to do
Someone here is really not happy
Put myself on a line
It seems I never got through to you
So I wean myself off slowly

Beautiful.

Kony 2012

I wrote my Masters' thesis on the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Joseph Kony and its overall ineffectiveness in preventing atrocities in Uganda, so this video jumped out at me.

I've signed the pledge.  I've ordered the Kony 2012 Action Kit.  But posting it here is the very least I could do.

"Humanity's greatest desire is to belong and connect".  The older I get, the more deeply I believe this to be the core driver of who we are and what we do. 

Check it out and help shape human history.

The Sand Pit

I. Just. Love. Everything. About. This.

Shit Comedians Say

Having just returned from the Adelaide Fringe Festival, this caricature of insecurity, self-doubt, vanity and desperation couldn't be more accurate. Welcome to the world of the fragile comic.

Bref. Je suis veille.

This series is énorme. It has the capacity to be both incredibly silly and genuinely touching, all at the same time.

I particularly love this episode.

"Un jour, j'ai eu son âge. Parfois, ca me rend triste... épuis j'oublie."

Bref. Je suis vieille. - Episode du 20/02

This old routine...

Ah, I just haven't been able to get this one out of my head.

This old routine will drive you mad.
It's just a mumble never spoken out loud.

The Downfall of Australian music

These Downfall parodies have been done to death, but what the hell - this one is pretty good.

"You're not a hipster. You're just a nazi."

Genius.

Top five regrets of the dying.

Great article in The Guardian about the top five things that people in palliative care say they will regret about dying. Food for thought for the living! Check it out here

Happy Australia Day

Australians struggle to take anything seriously, even their own National Day.

The Melbourne based boys at The Juice Media have been rapping the news for a while now. They've attracted comments from The Guardian, and even managed to have Julian Assange appear in one of their videos.

Check out their take on Australia Day. Or should that be Invasion Day?

I should just add, it contains strong language, so if you like your satire clean, it might not be for you.



For those who are not easily offended, check out the extended version of "Australia Day, yeah c*nt". I particularly like the subliminal kangaroo.

Bref, j'étais à côté de cette fille

This is the final episode of series 1 of the French comedy short Bref. The kiss is good. The music is better. The graphics behind the kiss, better still. Overall, it's magnifical.

Bref. J'étais à côté de cette fille. - Episode du 18/01

Over the hill, I met the sea

Last weekend whilst in Berry, I managed to find time to do part of the Kiama Coast Walk from Werri Lagoon to Kiama.  Unlike in the UK, Australian farmers don't usually allow 'ramblers' to walk across their land. However, the local council has managed to come to an arrangement with local farmers and landowners to allow public access to the coastline.

I was almost the only person on the trail that day. The sight of the swell rolling in from the horizon, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below, the smell of sea salt rising up over the cliffs and the rustle of the wind as it flew over the long grass that coated the hills: there was absolutely nothing man made to be seen. I felt like a privileged intruder in this foreign landscape. As if I was being allowed to experience it as it would be when no one was looking, when it was alone. The rocks wore the marks of a million year old conversation between the land and the sea. It was a stark reminder of the unerring endurance of this place, and of my own transience in it.  But for the high-pitched chatter of the sea-gulls that hung only metres above the ocean, I could have believed that no one had noticed me. But the sea saw me on the hill.

Jamison... present!

As Death Cab for Cutie once sang: "So this is the new year. But I don't feel any different."

Well, it may be a new year, but just to prove that nothing has changed too drastically, here's my new favourite Buechner quote:

"What I had not found, I could not name. And for the most part, knew only through my sense of its precious, and puzzling and haunting absence. And maybe we can never name it by its finale, true and holy name. And maybe its largely through its absence that this side of paradise, we will ever know it."

So what had he not found?

Connecting you now...

It has, I guess, always been my secret hope that my random musings on this blog would spark some sort of sense of connection with others as they go about the task of reflecting on their own lives.

About six months ago, I received an email from a girl completely out of the blue, saying that she had followed this blog for about a year; that the writing on here resonated with her; and that it gave her some comfort to know that there was someone else out there "wondering about these things".

Wondering about things can sometimes be a lonely business. Sometimes it feels like the world has little time for people who wonder. Sometimes it's just nice to know that other people are out wondering too. 

Well Bronwyn and I have kept in touch, (and in a strange twist of fate, actually ended up working together for a little while), and I have finally, after much coaxing, convinced her to post some of her own musings here. Stay tuned...

Goodbye 2011

Well, it's been a big year. A year of change. It started with a bang. Dan Ilic and I wrote a film about gay marriage which made it into Tropfest. The first six months saw me teaching law at Sydney and Macquarie Universities. I owned a scooter in Sydney. Silver Cinder played at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and at The Vanguard before it came to its end. I worked at the Lowy Institute. And finally, I moved to a new home in Canberra to work for the Government in human rights. Along the way I fell in love with the writing of Frederick Buechner... and there's more to do there. I bought a piano and set up a home studio... and there's more to do there as well.

There'll be more musing and whining next year, but for now, thank you to those random selection of people around the world who continue to read this blog. I hope it serves some purpose for you, as I know it does for me. For now though, have a great New Year.

In the words of my old friend Eric Demay: Don't settle. Stay young. Stay foolish.

Men Who Swim

I recently saw this beautiful little documentary about a group of middle-aged men/misfits in Stockholm look for meaning in their lives by joining a synchronised swimming team. The documentary follows the lives of the team-members as they train for the inaugural All-male Synchronised Swimming World Championships.

This film snuck up on me. At first it seems like a fairly eccentric look at the life of an ex-pat (Welshman and Director Dylan Williams) in Sweden who is seeking to make sense of everything around him as he arrives at middle-age disappointed and frustrated at his hitherto lack of success/fulfilment. However, as the the documentary rolled on, I found myself drawn into the lives of these men - ordinary men, all seeking something extra-ordinary.

The beauty of this film lies in its celebration of the small everyday struggles and victories that life offers up to each of us. The loss of a job. The rueing of youth past. The unexpectedly expensive vet bill. The finding of love. The film holds up these little moments as having one incredibly special thing in common - they are present moments. Through synchronised swimming, this group of men - men who up until now have either looked expectedly to the future, or ruefully to the past for meaning - learn to find meaning in the present moments of their lives.

The trailer doesn't do the film justice at all and the film's distribution is a little sketchy, but if you manage to catch Men Who Swim on a shelf in a dvd store, it's well worth a watch.

Reminiscing...

Have just been looking over this blog and some of the posts that I've put up here over the last 5 years. I feel like I haven't written anything meaningful for weeks now. I don't know what it is. I just don't feel like posting. Don't feel like commenting. Don't feel like listening to my life.

I even had a draft post about Paul Keating's leadership capabilities ready to go... but I can't bring myself to finish it.

Ah - where is the muse?