Interruption

Gustave and Gaius were upstairs looking at a collection of works by young German and Australian photographers.

This is better, said Gaius. Nice photographs in frames on walls. Too tame for SPLOSH! no doubt.

Who would have thought? said Gustave.

Thought what? said Gaius.

That Violetta would turn out to be a crazy street artist, said Gustave. She's certainly not the courtesan I thought she was.

You thought she was a courtesan? said Gaius.

I did, at first, said Gustave. Violetta the beautiful but doomed courtesan from Verdi's La Traviata.

A fictional character? Gaius looked sceptical.

Yes, a fantasy, admitted Gustave. Which turned into a nightmare, he added. How are we going to get rid of her?

We don't have to get rid of her, said Gaius. She's a very fast rider. She'll be an asset to Team Bumptious.

Hmm, sighed Gustave. She doesn't strike me as a team player.

He began to look at the photographs, idly.

What are we supposed to make of these? he asked Gaius.

We're supposed to be asking ourselves what they are telling us, said Gaius. For example, the choice of subjects, and points of view. And are they different for the Germans and the Australians? And if so why? And in what way?

Well, said Gustave. Let's see. The Germans like taking pictures of customs check points, and derelict camp sites and girls with bandages over their noses, while the Australians like taking pictures of anorexic girls and picnicking rabbits or, wait a minute, are they goats?

Gaius was just about to take a closer look when SPLOSH! burst out of the lift and ran towards them gesticulating wildly.

Quick, you guys! she cried. We've got to get out of here pronto!

Pink Flower

On the walk back, clouds filled the sky and the sea turned the colour of molten metal. Or so I imagined. Because all at once the sea looked like a brilliant photograph. A line of white on the horizon, silver gelatin sea, frothy tea shallows and dried apple sand.

But that was not what prompted me to take a photo. Well, yes it was. But that was not what prompted me to take two more.

What prompted that was the last of my coastal flowers. A little girl in a fluorescent pink net skirt. You could tell she loved that skirt. She was jumping in the shallows with her sister, making the skirt bounce up and down. It was something like a tutu. And over it she wore an oversized white top.

You know how these days you aren't supposed to photograph other people's children without permission? Luckily there is a distance beyond which that rule does not apply. The little girl was way down on the beach in the middle distance with her sister, and I was up on the esplanade with my mum.

So I snapped her twice. Once when she was leaning forward calling to the sister, and once when both of them began to run.

In both shots the pink skirt is a tiny bright pink spot in the silvery landscape.

Frames

Yesterday we went to Grange and walked north towards the jetty. When we reached the jetty we walked under the jetty without stopping. The sand was cold under the jetty. Without breaking my stride I looked right and saw a family tableau; looked left and saw the slurping sea framed by the jetty pylons. It seemed like the right thing to do.

We kept walking north towards the next jetty. The next jetty isn't visible, but there must be one. What we could see was a giant tanker on the horizon setting out from somewhere. It looked like a grey castle on a grey cliff. That was because it was a tanker. But it reminded me of a castle on a cliff because I often see photographs of one.

The sand formed rippling patterns north of the jetty. I like to look at patterns and think about their meaning. They have to have a meaning or they wouldn't be a pattern. I realised yesterday that might be tautologous, and if it was, the pattern was irrelevant. I was glad to think so, because it was hurting my ankle to walk on the pattern.

We left the beach. On the esplanade near the toilets we passed three wooden masts, A sculpture of a bird sits on top of the middle one. It looks just like a real bird. I don't think it's a pelican. I was looking back at the sea between two of the masts to where a purple sail filled with wind.

Today, when I first remembered the sail, the wooden masts framed the memory, for several seconds before I remembered what they were.

Reinterpreting the Past

There, said Pliny the Elder, I told you Plato wouldn't have much idea of a real bicycle.

Yes, I agreed, but you must admit he talked his way out of the situation quite well.

He certainly did, said Pliny. Philosophers are like that. They can wriggle out of anything just by changing the meaning of words. Give me natural history any day. You know where you are with it. Something is either true or it isn't.

Mmm, I said doubtfully. Some of the things you wrote in yours are difficult to put in either category.

Nonsense, said Pliny. They were either true or not true at the time, that is what matters.

I know what you mean, Pliny, I nodded. Remember the artist who made the paper boats out of the encyclopedias? Well, one of the other things she did was to spend a whole year sandpapering the text from a set of thirty two Time-Life World Library books from the 1960s, leaving only the photographs. They were on display at the exhibition too. It was the most extraordinary thing, to see all these books with the text so painstakingly removed. It forced you to reinterpret the photographs.

What has that to do with my works? asked Pliny, suspiciously. I didn't include any photographs.

Proles

Another Lunch Hour Concert yesterday. I make a habit of choosing an inappropriate seat.

My mother's friend was there. I led us forward to three seats on the second row.

The concert was performed by Stefan Ammer on the piano and Rachel Johnson on the cello. First they played Brahms. I was very happy listening to the Brahms. Usually I don't like Brahms all that much. I always think of that Warren Mitchell film where Brahms eats sardines straight out of the can, wearing mittens.

But this was far from sardiney. I like the cello. If I were a musical instrument, I would be a cello. However, at the end of the piece my mother whispered, "That was so loud! I'll have to take my hearing aids out." I turned to her friend. "It's nice to be so near the stage, isn't it." "Yes," she nodded. " You hardly have to crick your neck at all." I'd forgotten that she only came up to my shoulder, sitting down.

Next it was the Shostakovitch. I like Shostakovich. But I began to wonder if we should have been sitting further back. I decided, since I was the only one enjoying being in the second row I would concentrate all the harder. Shostakovitch's Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor. It was the one which pokes fun at the Prolekult, in the finale. I was waiting for that bit.

Waiting, waiting. Suddenly I realised that, far from listening to the largo, I was trying to multiply 15 by 15 in my head. This was to see whether I had cheated my mother earlier by asking for $2.80 for 15 photographs at a cost of 15 cents each. You fool, I said to myself. You can calculate 15 x 15 any time, while the music is but fleeting. So I paid attention until the end. Yes, it was very plinky-plonky. But I wondered whether I would have picked up the vitriolic sarcasm of Shostakovitch's dig at the Proles, if I hadn't read the program notes.

"That was lovely," said my mother at the end. "It was so much better with my hearing aids out."

"Wouldn't it be marvellous to play a musical instrument," said her friend.

As for me, I forgot all about 15 x 15 until now. I've just worked it out on a slip of paper. It appears to be a lot less than I thought.