1970

"It's possible he didn't even know I was fourteen, as I could pass for a lot older. It was different then, people took care of each other, it wasn't dark at all."

Extra! Extra!

"Like a cue ball scattering the opening shot, the establishment broke the cluster and spread the beat generation across the country. It took the seeds gathered by poets, painters and psychedelic holy men ten years to flower into the gigantic minority of gypsy drop-outs currently imploding from the middle-class vacuum."

How do you do, you do, you do, you do.

I have just rediscovered a book I own of Beatles photographs. These aren't from it, but I like them all the same.

"In Brisbane the Beatles were pelted with eggs by male fans, perhaps jealous of the distraction the fab four were causing amongst their girlfriends. 'In our country we usually have eggs for breakfast.' Ringo said. One of the egg throwing ringleaders commented, 'We just wanted to see if they could take it.'
'Of course we could take it, but I like mine scrambled on toast. The other three like theirs fried - right, George?' replied Ringo."

Might post actual pictures from the book later.

The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered As A Downhill Motor Race

"Evergreen published writing that was literally counter to the culture, and if it was sexy, so much the better. In the context of the time, sex was politics, and the powers-that-be made the suppression of sexuality a political issue...It was always damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead."

I really do hate international shipping charges.

House by Mouse

"All the animals want to live in a house designed by Henrietta, because she is the only mouse in the world who understands exactly what makes a squirrel or a rabbit, a caterpillar or a frog feel at home. In short, Henrietta is a genius."

A beloved children's book of mine where moles enjoy croquet, squirrels live in houses that look like spaceships and spiders play jazz to attract their dinner.
I would spend hours trying to think of the perfect combination of the houses, a place where I would like to live.





"Fox is an untidy fellow. All he wanted from Mouse was a... sort of place where he could relax after a hard days scheming and running."

Book by George Mendoza, beautifully illustrated by Doris Smith.

The Forward

"The child's world is a world of symbols, shapes and sizes until that dismal day when it is taught to put a label on each and every thing it has felt, touched and smelt, and forced to shrink it by a name.
The child's world is the poet's world where dimensions differ only according to feeling, not fact, that place of the fourth dimension that eludes all but painters, poets, lunatics and the players of musical instruments. And it even eludes those at times. That is why they remain children, eternally commited to chasing after it, clinging to the tatters of those clouds of glory with which we are all born and which only rationalisation can rip off.
Definitions are dull and delineations even duller. Blake's Tiger would never have burnt bright in the forests of an adult's night, but simply have gone out like a light while the adult died of fright.
But beautiful things are not fearful in the innocent world because there one has curiosity instead of terror and a suppleness of mind that adjusts itself to the wonder of the unexpected as easily as the pupil of the eye to the fluctuations of light and dark.
Here then is a little book that is the right way up. A glimpse of a world wherein there is so much time and limitless space that no one has to confine or categorise out of meanness of heart, for fear that there won't be enough beauty or enough truth to go around unless you frighten others away."

Yehundi Menuhin

Creature Feature

This illustration by Jimmy Turrel reminds me alot of the work of Fleur Cowles. In particular the book Tigerflower she did together with the beautiful words of Robert Vavra. It also includes a forward by Yehudi Menuhin which I adore.


I certainly hope Jimmy begins to wear similar shades.

Lou Reed

Brando in Waterfront in the car doing the "I coulda been somebody" speech. Put it to a guitar. The same for Blanche in Streetcar. The "kindness of strangers" recitation. Can't you hear it sung?