Essences

What is the essence of a photograph? What it is? Or what it is of?

Pineapple essence: I made a copy of the photograph of the Intellectual Pineapple wearing glasses and reading The Toilers of the Sea. I wanted to make a funny birthday card for Colin. I had to load it on to a memory stick and walk to Officeworks and get it printed out. I was glad the girl who printed it didn't see what it was. Next I took it home and stuck it on a card. Then I had to think of something to say to make it funny. And I couldn't. Because Colin may not have read The Toilers of the Sea.

Baby essence: Claire asked me to send her some photos of Chris as a baby. I guess she wanted to see if he looked like Ben. Or if Ben looked like him, since Chris came first. I found the old photo album and picked out three black and white ones. In two of them I was holding Chris and in the third one Allan was. We looked so young I fell in love with us.

More pineapple essence: This week's pineapple from the Central Market wouldn't stand up. It had no firm basis to stand on. I was trying to think of a personality for it, for the photograph. I decided it looked like a voter. So I placed it next to the front page of the Independent Weekly, as though it were looking at the headline, "What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?" which refers to the Treasurer Kevin Foley. The pineapple looked smugly indignant. I called the pineapple Indignant Liberal Pineapple, and loaded it on to my Facebook. I fear the pineapple now, for we are yet to eat it.

The Intellectual Pineapple.

Every week we buy a pineapple from the Central Market. Every week we take a photograph of our pineapple before we eat it.

This week's pineapple was wearing reading glasses, and looking at the cover of Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea. I called it the Intellectual Pineapple.

That was on Friday. Since then, I have found myself reading the final chapters of The Toilers of the Sea through the eyes of the Intellectual Pineapple.

This hasn't been much of a problem as The Intellectual Pineapple and I see pretty much eye to eye on most things.

We worried as Gilliatt faced the dangers of the storm. We trembled as he escaped the clutches of the Giant Squid ( for that is what it was), we shivered as he discovered the skeleton of Captain Clubin in an underwater cave, covered with dead crabs, which had eaten his flesh. We exulted when Gilliatt found the leather belt containing the seventy thousand francs. And we looked forward to his marriage to the beautiful Deruchette on his return home.

But it all went horribly wrong, for Deruchette had meanwhile fallen in love with the handsome new rector, who had just come into a fortune. The Pineapple remained confident. So what, said the Pineapple. She'll marry Gilliatt. She promised.

He couldn't believe it when Gilliatt did the noble thing, helped the young couple marry secretly and sail to England, and then drowned himself.

That's no way to behave, said the Intellectual Pineapple. Dammit, I identified with him!

Ladyfingers

Le Bon David struggles through the tent flaps with several large shopping bags. He dumps them on the floor next to the camp bed on which The VeloDrone is lying, surrounded by used paper tissues.

Feeling any better? he asks.

A little, says The VeloDrone, sniffing ostentatiously.

Well now, here's the shopping. I went to the Central Market and bought all this delicious, healthy, fresh fruit and all these lovely vegetables. Look! Mangoes, three for five dollars, a ripe pineapple, sweet green sultana grapes, yellow nectarines, ladyfinger bananas, watermelon, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers.....

I don't like ladyfinger bananas, grumbles The VeloDrone, I only like ordinary bananas.

Never mind, we still have two ordinary bananas left in the fruitbowl, says Le Bon David, peacably. What would you like for your dinner? I'll get it ready for you now because I'm going out later to a Fringe show.

Oh? says The VeloDrone, what is it?

It should be quite a lot of fun, Vello. It's called La Petite Mort - The Orgasm, presented by Ladies Who Lounge.

The VeloDrone perks up. Wait a minute! Isn't it my turn?

No, it certainly isn't. You went to The Chronic Ills of Robert Zimmerman, remember?

Then you went and looked at the Northern Lights!

But you came with me!

And I caught a cold.

That, dear Vello, is irrelevant. And Northern Lights is not even part of the Fringe. But I must say you are suddenly looking a lot better. Would you like to attend La Petite Mort with me? We can always go halves in a second ticket.

Yes, David, I would love to come with you. And you're right, I do feel a whole lot better. Would you be so kind as to pass me a banana?.......... No, not that one!

Thinking Street

Chocolate? What kind is it?

Dark energy.

Oh I see. Is that why I can't actually see it?

Yes.

What a pity. I like chocolate.

So do I. My friend Li Feng gave me a chocolate this morning. A Ferrero Rocher. She didn't have one herself. She never does. She says they give her pimples. That reminds me. Something she told me supports the hypothesis of the expanding universe. Two things actually.

What were they?

The first thing was that when she went to visit the Tax Office last Wednesday, it had moved. It was much further away than it used to be. She called them on her mobile and a nice man gave her directions, so she got there eventually. I asked her where the Tax Office is now and she said it was on Thinking Street. That means I probably wouldn't be able to find it either.

Thinking Street. There isn't a Thinking Street in the city is there?

No, that's just it. Unless she meant King William Street.

Mmm. What was the other thing?

She said that when she goes to the Central Market, and parks her car in the Central Market carpark, she always gets charged for an extra hour, even though she makes sure that she gets to the exit with four minutes to spare.

Perhaps their clock is fast, or hers is slow.

No, she's checked, and they're both right, but it happens every time.

Doesn't that support the hypothesis of a contracting universe, if she doesn't get as long as she thinks she should?

No I don't think so. She ends up with 56 minutes of parking time that she's paid for but doesn't need. That's a lot of extra time. And time is equivalent to space, on the space time continuum.

True. Especially in a carpark.