Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by gmw

Ha! Very good. I hope the situation above wasn't quite that egregious ... although I must admit to having been surprised by Uncle Robin's reaction to the quote. It never occurred to me (having read what went before it) to try and interpret the words that way.

It was the "they make no attempt to dominate it" bit that really pushed my buttons. Clearly, their ancestors DID, as all humans everywhere have always done, short-sighted selfish kids in a candy shop, that's the very inaptly named Homo Sapiens Sapiens. If indigenous Australians are more in tune with the land now (which it definitely seems they are), it's because they've learned they have to be in order to survive.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

It was the "they make no attempt to dominate it" bit that really pushed my buttons. Clearly, their ancestors DID, as all humans everywhere have always done, short-sighted selfish kids in a candy shop, that's the very inaptly named Homo Sapiens Sapiens. If indigenous Australians are more in tune with the land now (which it definitely seems they are), it's because they've learned they have to be in order to survive.

I can't help thinking that if we can't forgive the Aboriginal people for changing the landscape 50,000 years ago, what hope is there for the rest of us?

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by gmw

I can't help thinking that if we can't forgive the Aboriginal people for changing the landscape 50,000 years ago, what hope is there for the rest of us?

For me, there's a difference between not forgiving them and according them (or any other 'communing with Mother Earth' peoples) some unearned quasi-mystical moral superiority

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

For me, there's a difference between not forgiving them and according them (or any other 'communing with Mother Earth' peoples) some unearned quasi-mystical moral superiority

I don't think they are in any danger of being overwhelmed by it.

[Uncle Robin]

From Assassin by Kate Jennings (included in Australian Poetry Since 1788)

She is an assassin of assumptions

[Uncle Robin]

Really enjoyed the small selection of Kevin Brophy's work in Australian Poetry Since 1988, this quote made me see Australia differently

The bike is a dream of low flying,
deep diving in air against the bluff of wind,
it teaches us hills and timing, slides us into curves
like a poem that, at last, fits this world.
Even the map of our country is the outline of a rider
crouched over a machine of wind and motion,
a dragon shadowed by its jockey
whose shape strains to hold in the spin
and dip of the planet’s waves, sand, ice

[Uncle Robin]

I really enjoyed this by Jamie Grant

The Rime of the Ancient Cricketer
The first two balls he swung and missed;
the third ball struck his knee:
he is an ancient cricketer and he stoppeth one of three

But on Googling it, I found that it appeared in a collection of his work published in 1987, while a longer (and inferior imo) version is online attributed to a Michael Green and dated 1965. Someone has been using Tom as their Lehrer.

[Uncle Robin]

A couple more from Australian Poetry Since 1988

From The Birds
by Philip Hodgins (written after his leukemia returned)

I've been rehearsing death each night,
and still I haven't got it right

and a link to another of his So and So's Famous Poem, one of VERY few poems about the art and craft of poetry in the more than 1000 pages of the anthology I've read so far.

[gmw]

‘I’m serious. What do you think I should do?’ asked Isaac, his eyes filled with angst.

Erika sighed and took his hand in hers. ‘You don’t want to hear what I think. I like being friends with you.’

-- Robert Bryndza, The Night Stalker (2016)

[gmw]

Love is blind. She shakes herself, hard. A foolish notion. Whatever exists between them now cannot be called love. Call it friendship, companionship, the camaraderie of soldiers who have been through a dozen bloody wars together and somehow survived. Never love. Love is for children and milkmaids, for painters and their muses, for birds so caught up in the warm flush of spring fever they lose sight of everything but their own desire.

‘Well, nobody needs gifts. But they can help, they can act as reminders that you’re not alone. Sometimes we need reminding.’

-- Lauren Chater, Gulliver's Wife (2020)

[fathead]

"That is how people are. Once they have food and drink and shelter, the next thing they must find is a quarrel."

A gently cynical observation from Adrian Tchaikovsky: The Tiger and the Wolf

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by fathead

"That is how people are. Once they have food and drink and shelter, the next thing they must find is a quarrel."

A gently cynical observation from Adrian Tchaikovsky: The Tiger and the Wolf

[gmw]

[Belle Gibson] would later tell her publisher that she believed her legions of online followers were attracted to her because what she was doing ‘was so raw and authentic’. There was not enough honesty out there, she claimed, and here she was, sharing her deeply personal story. ‘I think too many people on social media overly “edit” themselves,’ Gibson said. ‘Right from the start I was very open, and treated Instagram as my personal space — I really think it was that authenticity that people were attracted to.’

Maybe [Belle Gibson] was trying a bit too hard to elicit sympathy. But fake cancer? No. No one thought she would do that. ‘There was a lot of things,’ said one former friend. ‘She would divert her gaze or she would stare right through you. Everyone just thought it was brain cancer. When you look back it’s like, Oh, that’s not cancer, that’s lying. But even if you thought she wasn’t telling the truth, who is going to be the person who turns around and says, “Hey, that 25-year-old single mother with brain cancer is lying.”?’

-- Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, The Woman Who Fooled the World (2017)

[WT Sharpe]

The quote is from "Strange Innocence"; an interview Mr. Waits granted J.T. LeRoy for Vanity Fair, July 2001.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

The quote is from "Strange Innocence"; an interview Mr. Waits granted J.T. LeRoy for Vanity Fair, July 2001.

Awesome! Thanks, I needed that!