The Riverbank

There were still hermits in Tasmania, especially down in the South and the farthest West in particular. They were not so unusual in that corner. Philippe needed to go down there, re-locate in fact; not these trips back and forth. Living out in the wilds might be beyond him—fishing, hunting for food and the rest—but a town somewhere on the fringe of the forest was manageable. This cooping in the city could not be endured any longer; the virus had of course made it harder. We spoke under a large tree with a wide canopy in the little park, sitting on the grass. The building behind provided shelter, there was no wind there. Philippe had grown a beard like many of us during confinement. Philippe needed to walk in the wilderness, that was all, he said. Within the wilderness everything was altogether different. This afternoon Philippe told of a river he had come upon on one of his recent trips, a rapidly running river. Pieces of fallen timber had been carried at speed by the rushing water. How to ford there presented a question? Could it be done? Philippe described sitting by the riverside for the remainder of the day pondering. Tie a rope around himself and wade out to give it a try. Pack by a tree also tied and pull it across afterward perhaps. Through the afternoon the river kept up its rapid run. In the morning Philippe returned to the bank to calculate again. Another two or three hours he sat there. Coming upon a tree down below would drag him under, no help for it. It was too rapid. It could not be done. The night before Philippe had calculated the same. No, it couldn’t be done. It was five hours back to the town. Well, no two ways about it, off then. No sense of failure involved. Indeed there had been some accomplishment. A settled decision had been taken. 

Disturbance (Sept26)

 

 

Bird in the front garden calling so long without reply from any quarter. It kept on. If Darwin was recalled right, like feathers & colouring, bird call was all to do with attracting a mate. Neither the window by the bed, nor the pair of roof windows showed any sign of light. All the street birds here were little more than fist-sized, which couldn’t be guessed with a valiant suitor like that. The old lemon stood within reach of the window, the kaffir lime adjacent. Bab’s old almond & apple had always drawn birds and the native plantings gave subtle fragrances of their own. Third week of September, blustery & cool; the heavy quilt was needed again, pulled up close over the ears, as Arthur had described his practice through winter. Temperatures always dropped at dawn, Arthur had memorably revealed, which seemed counter-intuitive. While the bird continued, the freeway surf ground on. It reminded of the Japanese story of the disturbed girl in her apartment, only able to settle herself once she had brought a goldfish into her room. It took years to notice Arthur's accommodations of the possums & neighbourhood cats. You never saw him close to any of them, but even from a distance the regard was apparent. Arthur didn't need an indoor pet; all the neighbours had warmed to him now, his breakdown forty years before well in the past. With some luck, like bird-calling, a partner might be drawn by a writer’s words on the page—that could be considered a hidden part of the contract. The Jap girl with the goldfish introduced you imagined slept in a swoon like Picasso’s Dreamer. A couple years ago the sculptor Dave, who lived in a shack by Kororoit Creek, had followed his TCM’s suggestion to get a dog. Whenever Dave visited Col accompanied him and we sat out back on the paving beneath the trees. Bab of course had a masterly way with animals, though in the suburban setting there had been no opportunity to witness that hidden side of her. At the refurbished shishi pub in Footscray a kids’ animal petting zoo came Sundays. In African Village up the road there was a regular South Sudanese named Elephant—Akoon in Dinka. Brilliant Dinka whistlers let loose from the pavement tables at d’Afrique, imitating the birds from the lakes of their region. One afternoon a Sudanese under the weather had stumbled up & down the street with his jeans slipped halfway down his bottom, hooting like a baboon, happily it may have been.

 

Up & Down On the Tube (Re: Howard Zinn & Michael Gove) published by Fleas On the Dog

Howard Zinn

Isn't he wonderful. Heard him before. Loved the mentions of Mark Twain & Helen Keller. Who in the heck knew that stuff? Carefully tailored fame.

From memory an autodidact, not uni grad.

You notice the size of the nib on Trumpet's signature quill? See the pour of lustrous black from the Fordham grad who cheated his way into Penn.

Remember Prof Blainey only a decade & half back during Howard's time, Bush's sheriff, banging on relentlessly about the advance of civilisation, impossibility of holding back against lesser cultures, refusing the black armband version of history. Still not dead the old bastard, god forgive me. (The voice of Bab at my back.)

My Pentel ENERGel 07 flows like a dream. Brought 20-25 refills with me out here, as well as half dozen pens; near the end of the supply after such an extended stay. Disdain inferior product. It took the Japs some good while to refine the technology for their nibs. Not to be taken for granted. You drop or even knock them, goodbye the cascading outpour from the heart.

His skin treatment in the shot here, as well as the autocue either side he swivels to read from like a halting schoolboy. You can imagine years ago how long he practised that tag, curls, hooks and flourishes to die for. No statesman in history has anything to compare, Theodore Roosevelt poss coming closest.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_L7U0R0oSM

 

 

 

Michael Gove

Knew the name but never laid eyes on the man previously, nor heard that voice and those rhythms.You feel humanity has been cruelly trapped and overpowered by malign forces of darkness causing such numbers to be herded into the language of this fellow's marauding ancestors. Stuck there we are like insect specimens in aspic. Three minutes of the twelve was as much as could be borne. You begin to think of the possibility of the revenge of the natural order currently working away on that island through this pandemic, the late interventions by BoJo all too little. Did you hear his recent freedom-loving guff contrasting Brits / Germans & others?!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV42soUXW_g

 

 

NB. Replies to mail from George

NB2. Published by Fleas on the Dog, March 2021.

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/9a0949f4-1d2a-4a7c-b9fb-a96b9b6bd861/downloads/NF%20_5%20_Up%20and%20Down%20the%20Tube_%20by%20Pavle%20Radonic.pdf?ver=1614992528313

Publication news: “Letter From the East” - New World Writing

 Hello all

As we creep on in these tough times I hope everyone is finding a way.

More now up again at NWW, recent work this from early phase Corona, March in Singapore. "Letter From the East” is a hybrid piece, 2.2k words. (There has been some switching of the title.)

See how you like it, —

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-letter-from-melbourne/

Pavle Radonic ~ Letter from Somewhere Quelle Horreur After years and decades of horror stories, movies, TV shows, graphics & advertising the actual does not, cannot possibly, penetrate. Not when it comes from the same screens and t… newworldwriting.net

Correction

Miraculous escape that avoided unbearable humiliation. Wasn’t there an episode in some book or film where a furious parent went to their miscreant child’s school and hauled him out front of the teacher and the entire class to deliver a wild thrashing? Oh lord! Saved by the merest chance. A sudden thirst taken hold. Teacher, may I go for a drink of water, please? Bending at the trough there suddenly comes the wild witch tearing around the corner of the building. Freak out! Horrendous fright. Immediate flight was the only answer. Get your ass outta there at any cost, boy, away before anyone could see. At that stage she may possibly have still been wearing her scarf & widows’ weeds. On the school grounds. Once a year or two later, at a morning recess it had been, she had come in that garb to deliver a forgotten lunch packet. Unspeakable! How to explain to Geoff Hester, Kenny and the gang? At least on that occasion she had not been armed with one of her shibas, birches—the thin, supple young sprouts she tore from the fruit trees. The plums that had crossed from the Spiers next door were available close at hand. You well remember the time that they could finally be taken down from the ledges where she kept them and defiantly snapped in pieces before her very eyes. There! There’ll be no more of that now... But that was ahead. Run now! fast as your legs can carry, home outta sight. Over Melbourne Road, down Hudson all the way, beside her riding her bicycle on the roadway, cursing the foul thieving dog you had become. In back, down the hall and into the second bedroom, screaming and howling, hiding between the wardrobes where a proper swing was denied. It was on one of those shelves within where her coin jars had been found, the bound musty notes behind. Fierce lashings across bare arms and legs that would produce the medalje you could show off, let everyone see the shameful, disgusting thief you had become. Tearing cries. Unsparing blows. How the neighbours both sides must have cringed. Thank all the stars in heaven later those liver-spotted hands could be kissed ten hundred times. In the hospital in the last days the childless Croat spinster Rose, who had taken a shine to her—same name as her mother, grandma Ruza—remarked something that had never been noticed before in all those years. Oh! What gigantic hands she had! Most likely a townswoman, Ruza had never seen the like. In her tales there appeared fathers and mothers she cheered on beating miscreant children. Ozlatilese ruke. Zlato was golden; golden hands delivering salutary correction. (No spoiling of the child.) Ailing father had warned in advance, You’ll never be able to manage on your own. Take them back to the old country, where the discipline of the Partizans will fix them. Adding, This boy will never come right without the Popravni Dom. Popravit was fix, correct. The House of Correction. Gravely underestimated his wife did old father Lazar... Skote jedan! Some of her vocab. was particularly strange (the morality unimpeachable). Google Translate rendered “cattle”, in the old sense of bovine presumably. Calf was a more common put-down, shared by the Serbs. Ovca, sheep was for meek dullards. One needed energy and strength up in the hills of karst. The meek and mild were hopelessly lost there.

Publication news: Billboards Up To the Sky - New World Writing

 Hello to all.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and well. Our lockdown, State of Disaster & Emergency, has been extended another fortnight in Melbourne, until the end of the month at least, and most likely October.

Here is another piece pulled from the Reject pile at NWW by Frederick Barthelme. “Billboards Up To the Sky” is a 600 word flash. Some of you may have read it in these pages a while back and also recall the earlier “Billboard,” published by the Canadian Anti-Languorous Project, Sept. 2018.

Here is the link—

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-billboards-up-to-the-sky/

All best wishes

Pavle

Publication news: Merciless - NWW

 

Hello again all

The battle continues in locked-down Melbourne, half-through the six week term. Night curfew, 5km travel & one hour outside the house for exercise and essential shopping.

Hope you are all keeping safe and very well in yr corners.

Another piece posted at New World Writing by Frederick Barthelme. “Merciless” is a longer sequence of shorts, running to 3.5k words. “Plenty terrifying,” commented FB. 

See what you think. Here is the link—

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-merciless/

Pavle Radonic ~ Merciless - New World Writing Nonfiction. The Real Thing. A few days ago the Chinese con­vert, cab­bie Cha, more than a lit­tle tedious with his long drawn-out sto­ries from one of the less rep­utable hadiths it may have been involv­ing talk­ing she-camels what­not.Totally igno­rant of pace and prop­er unfold­ing the man; lame mat­ter of that kind com­ing from an old cab­bie sur­pris­ing. newworldwriting.net

All best

Pavle