Personal Trainer (Miklos Nyiszli) April24

Young bantam by the flowerbeds beside the rotunda in baby pink gloves working on her jab & hook with not one, but two personal trainers. (Perhaps she was taking turns with her sparring partner.) Late night little parks like that presented danger, this lass determined not to be caught unprepared. 

 

After a life-time of reading, the Auschwitz pathologist Miklos Nyiszli presented the extreme of human drama with Mengele and some of the other notables in an account that defied comprehension. All knowing and understanding fell to nothing before those scenes in his memoir. 

 

Turning onto Beaconsfield in the days later those palms, the Spring greenery and curved paths in the park appeared as intangible as drawings in a children’s picture book. The émigré Jews who settled after the war in Balaclava must have looked upon it the same when they came down the road to the beach.

NB. Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account

Rand Corp

Only snippets of her over the years. She’s been rediscovered last decade in particular by the techno-entrepreneurs mainly. The truly filthy rich aren’t in need of that schtick. Young IT friend thinks she's pretty hot and onto the thing. When yr designing systems & actioning events in the meat world from yr man cave on the big screen, can get mighty frustratin watchin the stumblers bumbling along, crashing into pylons standing right there in plain sight. Canna waste time on dross, that’s what the trash bin’s for. Lottsa losers takin up space.

 

 

NB. A friend recently come upon Ayn Rand.

Publication news: “One Piece Dragon” - New World Writing

Hello again everyone

Another publication to announce, again with Frederick Barthelme at New World Writing. First penned in the early period in Singapore, there are some harsh notes in this one.

Here is the link, no paywall (3k words) —

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-one-piece-dragon/

Pavle Radonic ~ One Piece Dragon - New World Writing For read­ers with good Mandarin—back-alley Mandarin it might be—the sig­nif­i­cance of the term is per­haps appar­ent. The guess would be street lan­guage passed into the halls of the Imperial Palace; nev­er for­mal­ly inscribed in the lex­i­con. newworldwriting.net



All best

Pavle

Condemned

Flat grey sheet of water right from the port to St. K this morning, cutting the eyeball like the editor from the States wanted his prose submissions, the guy who was later attacked for sexual offences, using his position for favours it might have been. 

Earlier the Anglophile Johnnie Good had sourced more material again for his arsenal in a report on a young Nigerian artist’s charcoal portrait of a grinning, grandmotherly Queen Lizzy. The world over worshiped the English, London in particular; the royals & the fabled civilisation they stood for; &etc. &etc. Failing fifty years ago to find himself a place in that sun over there had never been overcome for JG. Condemned instead to the wasteland of Oz with its unforgiving sun, the superficially pretty waterfront hometown of Williamstown in his case. 

With the new15km allowance the circuit was extended to Altona now, more wide seascape garnered, a little fetching along the native grassed segments that cast the city towers further back on the other side of the bay. The old Dalmatian’s villa carrying the mounted life-buoy a few doors off Miller’s corner. Dugi Otok the man hailed from, proudly inscribed on the old, weathered item hung beside his balcony—Croatia’s own Long Island. 

Plenty of airborne salt and wide vistas sucked up along the ride, when the mind had narrowed so badly during the record-breaking lockdown. A seat in the park could be taken by the Morton Bay Fig and the old homestead where glass-eyed Brett was born. Living without a phone or computer, there was only the possibility of a chance encounter with Brett on the street. 

The exercises on the mat too were more important than ordinarily; particularly prized those endorphins now. Brett had suggested a couple of new ones at the last meeting.

A new perch too on Carlisle Street beside a cafe counter offered the passing parade: shapely women in athletic tights, cute canines (another toy poodle after the first was sighted in Footscray) and the local street people, who received better than average consideration in that particular locale. 

The Jewish Las Chicas offered a soft wooden bench recessed into the building immediately abutting the pavement and looking down the street beside hipster Wall. The railway station adjacent funnelled more humanity again, a number of regular commuters reappearing. One shy old Serb who caught a train there early afternoon came equipped with some kind of device that  blared old familiar folk songs. Late mornings a cheeky Peloponnesos tried his native tongue on all comers, the vulgar lexicon mainly once he had established some rapport. A number of passersby saluted the fellow with yiasous and ti kanis? 

Chicas stood in place of the old German sandwich shop that had been located just a few metres off thirty years ago, the only café along the strip then. 

An alarming 1,400+ new cases reported that had been boosted by the illegal football gatherings—another record-breaker with the Delta strain. A couple of days after the final that event alone delivered 500 fresh infections. For the politicians it was difficult hammering an iconic marker like that, the allure of the biggest game on the calendar simply undeniable. Over in Perth there had been a number of arrests of Victorians crossing illegally to attend. 

How far the erotic had been suppressed over the globe through the period an older man could not judge. Occasionally beneath the masks some flickered wincing was apparent. Without input from any side, the past rushed in even more than usual and almost completely overtook. 

Dress-ups and office smart were much less in evidence, the simpler attire delivering a kind of relaxed, democratic spirit. Women must have been feeling the denial of male admiration, even with the terrible attacks and murders in so many corners across the globe. The cop in London and his beautifully fresh-faced young victim played again and again in the media. 

Shaggy-haired Greg turned up regularly at the Chicas bench in his old wino guise of late, trying his shtick with the passersby. Only the once was he told to FFF off by a gay gal he had rubbed up the wrong way with his rattle. Mostly his good-natured banter was accepted and well received. The last week he had begun to synchronise meetings with calls, though sometimes he simply popped up out of the blue. Even he had finally been prompted for the jab against the Canova, as he continued to call it. Mornings when he was talked into his other jab by Danny or Mick he absented himself.

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                       Melbourne, Australia

                                                                                                                  October 2021

Scopes & Drones

 

Just when you didn’t need them, 4-5 drones in the last few days, all adults apart from the chap tutoring his less than captivated young boy. The first few sightings among the birdlife you wondered what in the blazing FFF. Around the creek mainly they appeared and along the mangroves by the wetlands. Could in fact have been five in the last two days alone. The hand-held devices presumably operated both the flight and gave exclusive video of the captured terrain—the muddy water, the grasses, sand and plastic litter. Foot long telescopic lenses were even more common, every second day, usually targeting the birds out on the rocks and in the water. Retirees in the latter case and younger men former. Sometimes wives stood off a way, patiently allowing the enthusiasm of their greybeard husbands. This older cohort were not golfing enthusiasts; that group practised tee shots around in the field behind the fishing village, fathers and older sons sometimes together concentrated over the balls at their feet. One chap brought a vacuum device of some kind in order to avoid unnecessary bending to pick up the wayward balls strewn about. (The golfers, if not every single droner and all the photographers, fitted the local equivalent of the MAGA crowd. You could bet your bottom dollar.) On the dock at the village the mystery was eventually solved of the industrial-like churning from the horizon. The light southerlies that arrived on shore carried nothing like the force apparent further out on the water. It took a landlubber three and more weeks for the penny to eventually drop. That was not wind in question out there, laddie. That there was the waves, dude. Wave power. Duh! Yesterday a squadron of pelicans were sunning themselves on a sandbank opposite the fishing hut at the end, more than a dozen bunched close in a place where they had never been found previously. For some reason the break of tractor tyres fifty meters out did not agree with the birdies just then. Willing them to take flight in formation over the half hour sit on the old wooden bench on the dock proved fruitless. That would have been something. Would have made the trigger happy lense guys cry missing their chance. In recent time the naked human eye had gotten lazy or blind. In the cities shiny new sports cars captured attention, architectural novelty & advertising billboards. Pretty women in the flesh were nothing compared to the sites. Porno afflicted walkin the streets impervious to the meatworld. There was every indication a return to normality—even Covid normality—would proceed as if nothing had really happened. The Premier was planning a re-start of the various events that gave the city it’s identity—concerts on the grass at the Myer Music Bowl,10,000 lucky punters allowed attendance for the running of the Melbourne Cup, early in the NY the Australian Open at the tennis centre, with chefs flown in for the upscale dining. Photographers had been plentiful on the equator; not drones so much, not even in techno-crazed Singapore, where security was always a concern. In the broiling heat sports were a hard sell there and the Muslims at least less captivated by the spectaculars. Odd how the various religious observances—Buddhist & Hindu too—could be sorely missed by a kaffir. 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                        Melbourne Oct 2021

Assault of the Senses

 

Not every guy would react like that, but there was no doubt about it, give this one particular chap of the former acquaintance a bakery, one raising crisp, fresh loaf on site, a good variety and some pride in the product, add pastries, cakes, pies, tidbits &etc all of the same high standard, what you automatically found was all the girls there—for that one particular kinda guy—all the girls serving suddenly, as if by magic, appeared the sweetest, most scrumptious and completely delectable sorts imaginable. In short, virtually all in the shop transformed into lovey-dovey, heart-piercing desirables. As if a spell had been cast. Put same out on the street, in a bus, at a bar, passing by beneath an umbrella, nothing whatever like effect, according to this man. It was something of the gingerbread house effect that had been evoked in the schoolroom books of a couple of generations past, that vividness and compulsion. Similar had been found in the experience at markets, fruit stalls, delicatessens, occasionally behind chemist counters, for this particular fellow. (Nurses commonly of course, but that was a special case and for a much wider cohort.) Not so much cafe baristas, waitresses, checkout chicks &etc. Not an effect evident in kitchens and less so again offices and even dance halls & concerts. Much less so. For this certain kinda guy wired in his own curious kinda way. Neither did suchlike occur at the gym, as one might have thought, nor classes of any kind—yoga, study, lecture, whatever. Broccoli, carrot, even turnips, potato & onion on display could set the scene and serve the purpose equally well. Clothing stores too were a no-no for example; neither carefully lit bookshops or galleries propitious (even in the case where compelling portraits & still lives were displayed on the walls). The circumstance made this connoisseur wonder on the other hand about porn & fashion victims. What if those unfortunates were placed in the right, healthy environment, could perhaps they be decently rehabilitated? A mutually known painter friend, our man once recalled, excellent and committed female artist, took offence at the chap’s account of a gallery visit one afternoon, where a patron within the room had been described as a far greater and more captivating work of art than anything whatever on the walls. Sizeable nuisance thereby reported; understandable umbrage taken in that instance. And yet how to tip-toe around the fact? asked this admittedly odd fellow. Were his own reactions so very rare? Surely there would be many similarly constituted, he always continued like a dog at a bone in the same vein.

Favourite Diva

Three or four years now it has been regular listening & watching of Callas' Casta Diva performance, where she just stands centre stage on the checkerboard floor and belts it out before the chorus. Completely transfixing.

 

 

https://youtu.be/s-TwMfgaDC8

 

Maria Callas sings "Casta Diva" (Bellini: Norma, Act 1)

The great Maria Callas performs an aria from her signature role, Bellini's druid priestess Norma, with the Orchestre de l'Opera National de Paris and Georges...

youtu.be

 

 

 

Following which there was a progression to the more familiar O mio babbino caro, in an early recital where the face and figure of the young Callas were completely unrecognisable. It came as a great surprise at first.  After some further thought on the matter it was understood as perfectly common—the semblance of youthful bloom was impossible to recognise in old age, and vice versa.

What to say about that delivery of the young Maria in Paris in what must have been the early 60s? How does the young woman work herself up in that way? The player king in Hamlet had nothing whatever on her, this strikingly young and beautiful Maria. 

Some of the WikiP entry touching on relations with her mother and father gave hints.

Lately the iPad was raised up on the stand in the bathroom evenings for the teeth-brushing, standing close and often having to come to a complete stop. It was a short piece, only two minutes and usually needed repeating.

In lockdown with borders closed, 1.5 metre distancing and the past with its many departed rapidly retreating, one recalled what was commonly remarked in the case of this or that masterly artwork—music, literature, film and sometimes painting too: under the sway it was the memory of emotion that deeply stirred.

In the last year of high school a jock who was school and neighbourhood football captain, for whom schoolwork had become very much a sidelight, heard something surprising from the English teacher in one of the classes talking about a book on the syllabus one was supposed to have read. The title comes back, though without the author: Talking To A Stranger. In that drama it must have been, a theatre script, at some point a character reached up to touch a lighted bulb, burning his fingers in the process. The character had reached for the hot bulb intentionally, for the same reason as that stated above, suggested Mr Mullane in the middle of the roundtable seating arrangement: in his particular straightened circumstances, whatever they were, the character needed to feel something.

Odd hearing for the late-teen jock in the mid-70s. Even now recalling it the matter seems a trifle far-fetched; a little over-dramatic. However, something rather less easy now to discount.

In both cases the black & white archival films of the young and older Maria Call leave something to be desired. They do however capture a good deal, especially in the case of the latter, the young performer only just beginning to make her mark.

 

https://youtu.be/l1C8NFDdFYg

Publication news - “Stash” - Aletheia Literary Quarterly

 

Hello everyone

Hoping this finds you all digging deep in these tough times.

Another publication to announce, down here in Oz this one. 

"Stash" is a prose poem/flash which gained an Honourable Mentionin a competition run by Aletheia Lit Quart. It features one of my roguish pals up in Geylang Serai, Singapore.

Aletheia has a paywall, with a proportion of proceeds going to WWF.

Here is the link, you can find the piece in Volume 3—

https://aletheialiteraryquarterly.com/

Best one & all

P