Tuesday & Wednesday, August 11 & 12 2009 (diary)

I enrolled in another CSC Course (Casuarina Senior College) this term, a beginners course of painting in acrylics by Donna Mearns.
Tuesday is our first class which I quite enjoy. We are doing our first subject, a rocky outcrop in central red Australia, using a variety of sponges only. It is quite amazing what you can do with this.
I like this acrylic medium, it is quick and easy to use, dries quickly, and you can rectify things when they go wrong. I find it much nicer to work with than just pastels, but hope to combine the two media later on. I look forward to the next lesson.

Wednesday I have lunch in the Palmerston Library Bistro, crumbed calamari with (nice) chips and salad for $9.50, not bad at all. It is lovely to sit here on the veranda outside having lunch, then read a book.
I pick up yet another interesting find in the Library, Brecht's Lover ("La Maîtresse de Brecht") by the French writer Jacques-Pierre Amette (translated in English by Andrew Brown) an expert on German literature and Brecht in particular.
The book, which won the prestigious French Prix Goncourt in 2003, is a novel about the famous German playwright Bertolt Brecht who, after 15 years in exile in Scandinavia, then California, returns home to East Berlin in 1948. The book offers a fascinating insight into both the political and theatrical worlds of post-war East Berlin and is also a good portrayal of Brecht himself.

Bertolt Brecht rose to instant fame and riches after the Premiere of his Three-penny Opera ("Drei Groschen Oper") in the 1920s.

I have never seen the opera myself but am very familiar with the music for it which was composed by Kurt Weill. I used to play it in Adelaide (during the 1980s) at book launches or University Conference openings with a woodwind quintet I belonged to.
We absolutely loved this music, but because much of it (apart from the well known Mac the Knife) sounds quite modern (almost atonal) we usually played it at the end of our performances when most of the audience had consumed too much alcohol to notice.

Thursday, August 13 2009 (diary)

Today Antien (my ex) is on her way to Europe to celebrate her 70th birthday with her two brothers in Holland. My daughter Babette will follow her on the 26th, then on the 1st of September they visit my sister Wivica for a week or more in the Black Forest.
Babette, like me and most Furstners, has a strong emotional and spiritual affinity to woods and forests and is keen to do some walks through the Black Forest. I have written out detailed directions for her of a lovely walk I did there several times last year.

It is a 8 km walk starting right from Wivica's home (Heitzmannshof). The first 4 km are all downhill through wonderful dense forest, then for the remainder it follows the Glotterbach until the picturesque village of Glottertal and Wirtshaus Zur Sonne. I asked Babette, to say hello to Bernadette, one of the waitresses there.
I am most envious and would love to be there too, but with the present financial crisis I have to be frugal with my cash position this year. Next year I will be back there for sure.

We have had a rather poor week with the bridge. My mind is still in good shape but I do get occasional memory lapses, especially with things that happened only a minute or so earlier. In bridge that is lethal because you need to remember which cards have been played, who is holding vital cards, etc. Mairead too has been slightly out of sink this week. But these are just temporary glitches (which I don't mind much anyway) and I am sure we will be back on track next week.

Friday August 14 2009 (diary, feelings of an introvert)

When Jane Fonda, (the well known American film actress and anti Vietnam War activist) once in a TV interview was asked whether she ever felt lonely, she replied : "No, I never feel lonely, because I am always with myself."   This is the best charaterisation of the feelings of a true introvert I have ever come across and I gladly concur with it.
Looking back over the years I now realise that the best and most enlightening "conversations" I have had in my life have all been with myself.

This Blog for example is just such a conversation. I am in the first instance at the same time talking to and listening to myself. This is why I prefer a strictly mono voice diary Blog such as this over say a Facebook which encourages communication and interaction with others. Don't get me wrong you are most welcome to send me an email with your comment if you feel so inclined, but my "conversation" here stands as is, unpolluted.

My conversations with others have on the main always had an entirely different purpose.
John Gray (the author of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus") comes to mind here where he states that when women talk to each other it is not what they say (the content) that is important, but the fact that they communicate. The interaction between the two is important, and although I am a man I am inclined to feel the same. The content of what is communicated between me and someone else is usually of little importance, entertaining at best, it is the emotional human interaction which is gratifying and significant. I know (as every introvert knows) that I am not really a part of the human race, but I want to be friends with it. This may sound silly to you (if you are an extrovert), but I assure you it is true.

I am also strictly a one to one person. I enjoy interaction with just one person at any given moment (and very much so), but in a group I immediately shut myself off, I am not interested. I remain silent, speak only not to seem impolite, and where possible I quickly retreat from the group. You could say that I prefer my communication with the human world to be through a straw only, or where a partner is concerned, via an umbilical cord.

This is not a sign of me being shy (although as a young boy I probably still was) but a matter of using my emotional energy effectively. I prefer to focus my energy, like a laser beam, on one point and one point only, the person in front of me. In a social group of people my energy is scattered around the circle, inefficient, so I shut it off. It really is as simple as that.

Still, I am not adverse of being amongst a large group of people, on the contrary.   I enjoy being amongst people, hearing and knowing them sit or move around me, in a Club for example, but I prefer to keep my distance. Today I suddenly realise it is a little bit like walking through, or sitting on a bench in a forest. I love trees, but of course I am not a tree and never will be. I just feel a strong affinity to their presence and enjoy being surrounded by them.

Saturday August 15 2009 (diary, Les Paul)

I only hear late tonight, at the end of the SBS music quiz show Rockwiz that the Jazz musician and innovator Les Paul has died two days ago, age 94 on Thursday August 13. Rockwiz has dedicated tonight's episode in his honour.
Les Paul was the inventor of the first solid bodied electric guitar and a pioneer of multi-track recording.

His unique sound of superimposed guitar tracks with vocal harmonies produced by Mary Ford where electrifying all of us young people in the 50s and 60s. Virtually every song they produced became a winner, but to me their How High the Moon and The World is waiting for the Sunrise will forever reverberate through my mind every time his or Mary's name come to mind. Les Paul has had a long and productive life and contributed a lot to modern popular music. Well done !! May he rest in peace.