The carnival is over…

Tonight a work friend posted on Facebook about the origins of her name. So I followed the link and typed in my birth family name, Wittingslow, and was directed to a page with the history of the name in Australia:

For many years Wittingslow was Australia’s (and one of the world’s) largest travelling carnival operations, spanning more than 60 years..

The explanation, as begins above, is a history I know well. The founder of the Wittingslow carnival was Tom Wittingslow, my great uncle. In later years my immediate family was somewhat estranged from my extended family and as a result I don’t actually know many of my relations anymore. What happened between me being a little girl and a ‘carnie kid’ during several summers of my childhood and the rest of my life where I haven’t seen most of this family I don’t really know. What I do remember though is the wonderful summers on the beachfront being part of the Wittingslow carnival on the other side of the fence.

It felt special being on the other side of that fence. As an adult I have heard taunts about carnival workers that I guess I don’t understand. Because what I knew was magical. Maybe because I was a kid. Or maybe because it was simply special on the other side of that fence. We did anything we wanted. We were young and our parents were strict enough that we weren’t allowed to run wild, but it was a family on that side of the fence. Even people who didn’t know each other by name looked out for each other. But best of all was the complete and absolute world that left reality behind and allowed us carnie kids to be whoever and whatever we wanted to be… all day long.

Whether it was playing in the sand, or walking to the dangerous White Cliffs where man-eating plants lived, or swimming and making sand castles. We’d race our horses with their manes and tails flying behind us in the wind. We’d wander through the empty carnival by day under the baking sun and collect torn lucky dip tickets and laugh at the clowns and pick up coins that had dropped out of people’s pockets on the rides. We all named our horses and each bragged that our merry-go-round horse could beat all the others. We’d hide in the gypsy’s tent in the middle of the carnival and dare each other to make her cockatoo squawk and then run screaming when he did in case she appeared and cast a spell on us. We dodged seaweed in the shallows with our nan, invented stories about the hermit in the hut in the middle of the sea and we ruled the sand dunes where the sea grasses would tickle our legs as we ran down to the sea every morning. And we never went to the other side of the fence.

But the most magical time of all was as night fell and the carnival came to life and we were all ushered into our caravan beds as our parents went off to work in the carnival. The lights would dance across the darkened roof as music blared from speakers and the screams of teenagers grew loud and soft as the cha-cha threw them around and around. The sounds of Tijuana Taxi and Spanish Flea would twirl around my head. And I’d fall asleep content that the world was a magical place of fairy floss and laughter.

And then the summer ended and we went back to our everyday lives where parents worked real jobs and kids went to school. But we had the next magical summer, and the next…

And then I grew up… and the carnival was over.

And It Turned Into a Ballroom Blitz

Last week a small group of family and friends got together for what was ostensibly my nieces birthday but turned into a night of hits (and not) from the 70’s and 80’s. On vinyl. With us singing.

There were groans from the younger generation. And hysterics from us – the cool, hip, slightly older gen x’s.

What was equally as funny was the fact that my sis-in-law had been given a record player as a present last Christmas. Yep, especially bought for her so they could play vinyl. Now that’s a sign of the times when you have to go out and hunt for a record player. It was actually a good idea though. We have a large box full of records that we can’t listen to. The greeny in me can’t justify replacing it on cd, although downloading it off iTunes is an option as wouldn’t be using up resources. But what a waste. Perfectly good records sitting in the cupboard not getting a hearing. Of course a period of 10 or 15 years went by when I wouldn’t have been caught dead listening to those old things because I love what’s available today.

But…

… when those records hit the loungeroom floor and we all vied for some of our favourites to be played (Ballroom Blitz , Crazy Little Thing Called Love), and groaned at others choices (The Pretenders – oh, please, my bleeding ears!), everyone was singing along and yes, even dancing… YMCA does it every time.

Although a firm favourite of mine I will admit, ABBA was banned as being too controversial as the room was split between lovers and haters. I strenuously denied being a fan of Bay City Rollers, although others there (yes, the girls) had been in love with them, ACA DACA was an all round favourite and we all fell about laughing at Ant Music and how cool we used to think Adam Ant was. It was unanimously decided the European version of 99 Luft Balloons was far better than the english translation, my brother finally fell out of love with Sheena Easton but we still got a listen to Morning Train, and even Soft Cell’s Tainted Love got a look it. And the worst song of the evening… yep, Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz. We still want to know who was the owner of that record!

And of course the night wouldn’t have been complete without a playing, as loud as possible accompanied by the entire room in chorus, of Am I Ever Going to See Your Face Again… NO WAY, GET F…

Gen Y & Z eventually left the room.

I’m a self confessed literary snob. I’ve always wanted my reading time to be worthwhile. And as a result my reading choices have been carefully considered for want of a better description. I don’t read mass market general fiction – this statement pretty much summed up my reading life. What a bore, I know. So when it was suggested we read all the ‘hot 5′ books for work I put up some resistance to Vampire Academy as I was sure it wouldn’t be my ‘thing’.

So, it has come as a bit of a shock to discover that after starting the first book I couldn’t put them down, I am desperately waiting for the next one and I am obsessed. Yes, obsessed! My boss told someone recently that I have become obsessed with them and I bristled at that thinking that he didn’t understand my reading tastes at all. But he saw what I hadn’t (which wasn’t hard since I’d read them in record time). What I didn’t want to admit at the time. But I am finally on board. Yes, I now embrace this strange phenomenon. I am obsessed by these vampire books so much that I have read them all twice as I wait for the next one. I have plotted out the next two books in various scenarios while the author does all the real work. And I have even researched the historical context of strigoi and moroi.

So, like Rose (yeah, I compare myself to her because I am a kick-ass physically superior butt-kicking strigoi killer… I’ve just got a day job so no one really knows) I’ve had to rethink my position lately. And although hers is about vampires and mine’s about reading habits I’m sure there’s a link. The Vampire Academy books may not be what would be defined as ‘literary’ but hey, I’m so thoroughly enjoying them I’m going to have to put them up there amongst the top of my reading list this year. They’ve definitely been worthwhile reading.

When it’s not just a story…

What is it when it’s a story and a drawing too… a drorie of course! Some very creative graphic designers I know have created a blog combining stories and drawings. http://drories.blogspot.com/

My favourites are Steve and Geraldine.

Geraldine is one cool cat.

Cleaning is good for the soul…

Today we have been cleaning our house. Not just getting rid of dirt and dust but really cleaning. As in clearing away the toxins and chemical buildup. It was easy, all that wes needed was a few new products, none of which came from the cleaning isle in the supermarket either…

vinegar, tea tree oil, eucalyptus oil, bi-carb soda, lemons… and a bit of elbow grease.

And it didn’t take much longer either. The only extra time I had to spend on the bathrooms involved spraying vinegar on the tiles in the shower recess and leaving it for 15 minutes.

What’s even better is that there’s no streaky residue that the chemical cleaners leave behind. All tile, metal and glass surfaces are gleaming, my bathrooms smell divine, and my body rejoices that it has a few less chemicals in this world to contend with.

We are even painting the bathrooms with environmentally friendly paint.

Imagine

Imagine a world beyond our world.

(Photo credit: NASA/Thierry Legault)

The most amazing, inspiring thing I have seen this week is the image of Atlantis and the Hubble space telescope in front of the sun. It’s humbling. And the entire mission, for me,  puts life in perspective.

At fourteen years of age I wondered for the first time what life was about. Not just my life, but the purpose of life. It was the first time I was aware of wanting to know the greater meaning of existence for humankind. Even if I couldn’t verbalise it at the time, it’s what I wanted to know. Back then though I thought there was an answer.

Then throughout the years I was drawn to television that imagined other future existences and as I watch I want to be part of that future. I want to know a world where we not just explore but know, even to some small extent, what is beyond our planet. And it’s hard to imagine the magnitude of our planet, let alone the space beyond it.

But watching Atlantis take off gives me goosebumps. Looking at the technology they are going to upgrade and install on Hubble is absolutely incredible, and seeing those astronauts working on Hubble is awe-inspiring.

Imagine being in that shuttle. Imagine being in space. Imagine looking back at our planet from the silence of space. And imagine what the technology is going to give us for years to come.

There is no one answer to the meaning of life or of our existence. But this takes us closer to being able to imagine another piece of the puzzle that is our place in it.

Bring Back Life

The NBC show Life has been cancelled. This is a tragedy in a television landscape that is populated with reality tv or gratuitous cop drama (and we all know which franchises they are). Don’t get me wrong. I love reality television. But there is more than enough of it. What there is also more than enough of is cop shows that need to shock the audience with gratuitous scenes of internal body parts, maggot infested corpses and violence against women. We can’t celebrate nudity on tv, but we can be subjected to these sorts of things. But that’s a whole different topic for when I feel like a rant.

Life is a refreshing drama about Detective Charlie Crews, sentenced to life for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s been acquitted and the continuing story arc throughout the show is his search for the people that framed him. Detective Dani Reese is his long-suffering partner who puts up with his fruit fetish and zen philosophies. It is these quirks that make the storyline so entertaining and his zen sayings each week are highly amusing.

I desperately want one of the US networks to pick up Life. Shows are arbitratily axed these days without giving them time to settle in. Of course the networks don’t give them time to settle in as they constantly change the time and day they air a show so that viewers don’t know when to watch.

There is a Twitter campaign to save Life that encourages USA Network to pick it up. Right behind the fiasco that saw Firefly pulled is this if it doens’t get renewed somewhere, somehow.

Popular Penguins

I’m adding the widget to show the Popular Penguins range of books. Now I just need to figure out how to add it to my sidebar.

Nostalgia

I love old photos. My mum has a big box that has hundreds of photos from when my grandmother was a child through to the present. Most of the more recent ones though are neatly kept in their envelopes but the older ones are a big jumble. But I know what they all are.

When mum moved recently she and I spent all day packing up her house one Saturday then spent the night going through the photo box. It was sad and sweet at the same time because we hadn’t long lost dad. But I had the same sense of wonder and excitement looking at the photos that I always have.

It’s like that box is a treasure chest offering up treasure after treasure of black and white gems that tell the story of my parents lives.

This photo was taken by my dad on Lord Howe Island on their honeymoon 50 years ago. I have no idea of the context, or of what mum was running from, or to. But the evocativeness of it sets my imagination alight.

Coldplay in Melbourne

Last week Coldplay lit up Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. And I was there for it. It’s been a while between concerts for me so I had forgotten how long you have to wait for the main act. And not just one support band, but two. Decoder Ring may just have gotten a new fan but I’m afraid the next band left me not just cold but stone motherless cold.

But I wasn’t there for the support bands anyway and Cold Play didn’t disappoint. It was incredible and amazing and fantastic! And so worth the wait.

Of course they played a lot of songs from Viva la vida, after all, that’s the tour. But we got some of their older hits too… Yellow, Clocks, Politik, Fix You, The Scientist. There were many highlights – the yellow balloons, the woman screaming behind me when they started singing The Scientist “I was scared they weren’t going to sing it, it’s my favourite!”, them running into the second tier and singing in the crowd, the songs… EVERY song. But the best part of all was falling in love with Lovers in Japan again and the thousands upon thousands of coloured butterflies that showered down on the crowd. It was magnificent!

Yes, I got a t-shirt (of course!). And no, I can’t stop listening to the album over and over.

The concert playlist:

Life In Technicolor – Violet Hill – Clocks – In My Place – Yellow – Cemeteries of London – Chinese Sleep Chant – 42 – Fix You – Strawberry Swing – God Put A Smile Upon Your Face – Talk – The Hardest Part – Postcards From Far Away – Viva La Vida – Lost! – Speed of Sound – Green Eyes – Death Will Never Conquer – Viva La Vida

Politik – Lovers In Japan – Death and All His Friends

The Scientist – Life in Technicolor – The Escapist

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