Posted by jerry on March 21st, 2004 — Posted in History, Writing
I’ve just picked up a copy of Apuleius – The Golden Ass (or Metamorphoses) – Penguin classics edition translated by Robert Graves. A precursor to Kafka’s ‘metamorphosis, the Cinderella folk tale, and a host of other works through the ages, this book is a great read! It is a kind of magic realist tale of lust, loss and transformation. Although quite lyrical, Robert Graves does appear to have cleaned up some of the more earthy language found in earlier editions, such as the translation by Adlington in 1566. And for the purists there is also a complete latin edition online. If you are unfamiliar with this book it is worth checking out Benjamin Slade’s Review: “The best piece of asse in Ancient Rome”.
Apuleius himself appears to have been a roman living in North Africa, which possibly explains the down-to-earth lustiness of this set of tales. He was a platonist and some of the Platonic duality comes through in his latin writings, including the Metamorphoses. The “Metamorphoses” was one of the first complete Roman latin novels to come down to us and it provides satyrical descrptions of all walks of Roman life from Senators to shepherds.
I think it is also possible to apply a Lacanian psychoanalytic reading to this work as an allegory of the divided self in the process of individuation (see Lacan’s “The Mirror Stage” and “The Agency of the Letter” in Ecrits. In this case the protagonist, Lucius, becoming self aware through his sense of difference (expressed in his transformation into an ass – classic Mirror stage), then filling the ‘lack’ of unity with the world/m/Other with semiotic practice: language – the tales and adventures – until achieving mythic union in his retranformation back into a man. So Apuleius’ Metamorphoses can be seen as metaphoric of the emergence of the ego-self into language. What do you think?
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on March 20th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Music
Yes I know it was on Wednesday 17th, but it’s about time I blogged it isn’t it? Now, you may recall that I play Irish music on a hardingfele (Hardanger fiddle – eight strings). We (the band Full Circle) played two shows at different Irish pubs in Canberra – 2.00pm-5.00pm at PJ O’Reilly’s and then 6.00pm-9.00pm at Filthy McFadden’s – both great Irish venues and each with a different appeciative audience.
PJ’s was a great place to warm-up because they also had Irish dancers and and got into the spirit of St Pat’s Day in a flamboyant way – green beer, green hats, green gas balloons – yeah I wound up with green hair too! Everyone was ready to party – even at 2.00pm on a weekday 🙂 So it was easy for us to get in the mood and party along with the crowd
And Liz Gregory’s Irish dancers (described as Canberra’s answer to Riverdance) were a treat – two of the dancers are currently first and second place holders in the Australian Irish Dancing Championships. We have played music for them before, and they got us playing jigs and reels for them to dance to – great fun all round!
Then there was Filthy’s! The set-up was a bit of a rush – but the pub has a great atmosphere with lots of dark timber and a good range of Irish beers – including my favourite Guinness! and, like PJ O’Reilly’s was well crowded. With the lights up and a quick sound check we grabbed a quick round of light beers (hey with six hours of playing, you don’t think we’d be drinking full strength stuff do you?) As soon as we launched into the first set the crowd were right into it, singing along and dancing wherever they could find a space. We debuted a couple of new (for us) songs – “New York Girls” and, after 20 years of requests, I finally did “Devil Went down to Georgia” – that great song about a fiddler who meets the devil in a small country to the south of Russia… It went down a treat fully justifying the work we’ve been putting into it for the last couple of months.
It was hot – musically and physically – and I was glad to have eaten a large lunch, because there was no time to eat from the start of the first show until after we’d packed down the gear at the end of the second show! – hence it was light beer the whole time aside from a soothing pint of guinness at the end :-p
I certainly won’t need to see a gym after a workout like that!
(Full Circle in concert)
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Posted by jerry on March 14th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Motorcycling, Travel
What an exhilirating ride! Just popping out for a pie – 130km to Batehaven on the coast with the friendly folk from Action Motorcycles – the first of what they hope to be a monthly ride. They’re a good mob, and they accepted the antique Bol d’Or with good grace. There’s nothing quite like the howl that comes out of that four into one exhaust when it comes on song 😉
And there were some good corners to be had heading down the Clide Mountain – they’ve cleaned up the road a lot in the last couple of years. Pity that the bear seems to have disappeared from Pooh corner.
You can just see the antique trying to blend in among the modern bikes 😉
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on March 14th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Travel
Every year Canberra has a Balloon Fiesta at this time of year. So yesterday (Saturday 13 March), we got up early and headed into the city to see the balloons being launched in front of our Parliament House. There must have been about thirty of them! Most were the usual shapes, but there were some unusual ones, like: the house, the frog, the bunch of balloons, and above all, Van Gogh! It was too much of a temptation when van gogh headed over the Australian National University’s Canberra School of Art:
The image was taken by my partner, Sharon Boggon who lectures at the Art School.
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on March 13th, 2004 — Posted in Motorcycling
so much to blog… so little time 😉
Last weekend was a total blast! Not only did I abruptly get a year older, but work paid for me to do advanced motorcycle training – and it was just the best!
Run by the ‘Stay Upright’ folks the course is basically about improving safety and survivability on the motorbike – better braking skills, better cornering – that sort of thing.
The theory part was good – lots of stuff on breaking distances and discussion on how to deal with tailgaters (grrrrr) and building buffer zones between you and the sardine tins… And then there’s the track day 🙂
These guys have built a track that incorporates all the stuff you don’t want to encounter on the road – corners that tighten up, adverse cambers, blind hills, humps just before corners – the works! It was a great opportunity to encounter all that kind of stuff – but under supervision and above all with no b@stard coming the other way… I could tell that my confidence was increasing when I started scraping bits of the bike and not worrying – and I was amazed at how quickly my antique Honda Bol d’Or (1981 CB900F) could stop. I also never thought I’d get the old beast airborne – but there was this hump you see…
Anyhow – noone fell off and we all had a great time! – An excellent course – highly recommended if you happen to live in Canberra, Australia – are there equivalent courses elsewhere? Have any of you done them?
Cheers & keep the rubber side down!
Jerry
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