John Clare Writings

I was not so long ago taken aback to read Eddie Perfect disparaging Mentone, which was where he grew up. I could not understand this. Mentone was then a secluded beach, shallow and backed by trees which in fact screened the residential part from watchers in passing trains.

There is a siren. It is in pursuit, slowing for a moment out beyond my glass front door… No it is the steel grille door that is closed. Now it goes around the corner into Bridge Street toward Glebe Point Road back up the hill behind me rather than the other hill toward the Harbour Bridge. Then silence.

It struck me a moment ago that Duke Ellington had died at my present age of 75. I know that several great ones listened to nothing else in their last year or so. Gil Evans comes to mind. Miles Davis, for whom Evans had written arrangements at the highest level (Miles Ahead, Birth Of The Cool, Porgy & Bess, Sketches Of Spain, Summer Nights) said that on a certain day all musicians should get down on their knees and thank Duke Ellington.

There was a period when I fell into the habit of sleeping in, even until noon! Disgusting. Well into one morning a dream or nightmare of frightening presence rose in my sleep. The outlines of everything around me began to waver and the earth as I could see it moved in some degree toward a […]

Continue reading » The earth moves

No doubt you are a person who thinks I live in memory. You are right, or would be if you had added the qualification that I also live very intensely in the present.

If you are any kind of aficionado (weird old word) you will probably know the movie as soon as I tell you who played the Ghost who Walks. It was George Clooney.

The cello when played this well has a regal grace and command. The edges can begin to furl like a cloak or a royal robe. Echoes move within the sound. It walks down a hall toward you.

Then they asked me about myself and told me it was a very nice bike. They were surprised that I was 75 – as well as 75% better – and encouraged me to talk about places I’d been and things I’d seen. Some of them were too young to know that Melbourne had hosted to Olympic Games in 1956.

Memory is an ecstasy and a torment. As before death rushes at me and stops it can be terrifying and ecstatic.

One of the newsagents near me is an old school ocker, though obviously middle class and reasonably well educated . I would be very surprised to see him demonstrating with Reclaim Australia, but he likes to snipe away at the views he assumes are held by customers like me.