Cigarettes & Running June24

 

Old rocker (your junior) by Lt Collins bouncing on his heels, cowboy hat, bristle, fair look-a-like of Ukrainian Vlad, entertaining himself first of all.

— I killed desire with cigarettes…

Might be a standard of the repertoire, fair chance. We all know what he means, of course.

In his late-20s the painter Si Brisbane had explained that his running provided a means of coping with that frustration.

Gallipoli (ANZAC Day 2024)

 

The Hari Krishna strangely closed today; supper would need to be taken elsewhere. On Swanston they hadn’t wanted to intrude on proceedings. Numerous of their nationals had of course been herded to the front lines, both wars. The well-known recourse all over. Serving lunch Faisal had quipped, You didn’t go to the march?… With the butchers? Man had gone on to suggest the Brits had been displacing Palestinians from their territories from way back. It long story, Faisal added. Perhaps the finer detail was not quite right; indoors Faisal was challenged later. The day before the PM had been up in Papua walking the track, with the hosting PM (seeking aid) in his golf shoes—an enthusiast, the latter. Our man was shod in sensible hiking boots. 15km on well-defined track now. Stories on the heroism as usual in the lead up, retailed in the newspaper by the local amateur historians.

Free To Look

 

— Excuse me. I don’t want to be rude in any way. Would you have any change, please?

         How possibly to rebuff such petition when you did have the desired in your pocket? A creased and worn old girl like her.

         When a brass dollar was brought up with the silver 50c, it needed to be both.

         A chap on Swanston sitting against a shop window near the library kept bare-chested these wintry days & nights too. In his late-40s or 50s, thin, yellowed folds of flesh over his midriff. One arm had been amputated right the way up by his shoulder, where the nub had the flesh bundled together and roughly sewn. A blinker, sheepish, something of the shy canine suggested.

         One could bypass such figures with minor wincing, like footage of devastation on the screen. Rather more easily too when the eyes were never met.

Gavrilo P. April24

 

Sixteen, not fifteen, now reported the young attacker of the Assyrian Bishop in Sydney... Last 24 - 48 hours an intention to check how old was Gav Princip at the time of Ferdinand's assassination. Turned out twenty; executed four years later. And how much evidence did the young Gavrilo have of Austro-Hungar atrocities against the Serbs through his young adulthood? All word of mouth; zero media to speak of. On his way to introduce his new wife to the family up in the village at Boka, circa 1938, Uncle Jovo, a gendarme commander in the Lika, went to visit the monument to Gavrilo in Sarajevo. Terrorists v. freedom fighters.

April ‘24

Publication news: Soekarno-Hatta Hanging

 Hello all

Another Aero publication of mine has just appeared, again from a while back - 2019, and again Airplane Reading in the States, edited by a long-time editor of New Orleans Review.

Under 500 words, centred on the international hub in Jakarta — highly swanky / soulless now.

All best to all

Pavle

https://airplanereading.org/story/5061/soekarno-hatta-hanging

Soekarno-Hatta Hanging Touch over 35mins on clear, open freeways in Jakarta on a Saturday; as soon as we cleared Thamrin City it was a breeze. As a consequence there would be a 4 hour wait at the airport. Newspaper nowhere to be found for love or money, what was worse; so said the first ass... airplanereading.org

Passing Muster

Numerous pretty young Asians footing along the upper end of Swanston near the library, with the peaks of their caps screening themselves on the approach. By these means they managed to escape the more searing and unsettling examinations. One among them this afternoon bore the clear sign of the ordeal on her crown, white upper case:

    STOP
ANXIETY

Perhaps there was more of concern too.